Dark Waters
by Gonch Ni
Summary: Convinced that they are in need of an experienced guide for the adventure, Gandalf advises Thorin to recruit one Master Gilli Waters for the part. His plan has two very sizeable holes with dire consequence: first, Gilli is not a Man. Second, Gilli is not a man. STORY UNDER REWRITE
1. New Recruit

_Hello there, folk! So, recently I got into all-things-Tolkien, and most-things-Peter-Jackson-adaptations, and this is what became of it. So, thank you those who click on the link to read, I love you for it :)) This is looking up to be a long one, and I'm planing to cover all three movies, mixing and matching element from both writen literature and screenplay, so I'm including both worlds in this thing. Some things I liked better in movies, other things I liked better in the book, so that is why, in case you are wondering._

 _So, let's get the ball rolling here, shall we?_

 _ **Story Details:**_

 _ **Tittle:** Dark Waters_

 _ **Author:** xXWhispersInTheWindXx, aka Nicole_

 _ **Summary:** Claiming the Company would fare better with an expert in travel, Gandalf convinces Thorin to hire seasoned guide Gilli Waters for the job. This plan has two major holes with dire consequences: first, Gilli is not a Man. Second, Gilli is not a man._

 _ **Warnings:** canon violence, occasional mild language, mention of rape, non-graphic depiction of torture, mention of alcoholism, lots of spoilers._

 _ **Pairings:** Undecided as of yet, but will happen as the story progresses._

 _ **Face Claims:** Gilli Waters—Keira Knightley, Little Brother—Scottish Shire Horse (pun intended), Saezae—red-tailed hawk._

 _ **Disclaimer:** If you recognize it, it isn't mine, if you don't, it is; simple as that :))_

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _1 / New Recruit_

* * *

Unimpressed.

There was no other word to describe how he felt. Well, that, and underwhelmed. Frankly, he saw little to no need for this; in fact, the entire ordeal was just about useless to begin with. Now that he saw what, or rather who, that old Wizard was talking about; he had more than half a mind to turn around and walk out of the tavern, taking his men with him. The Hobbit was one problem he would weather until he made himself useful, but now—surely, the Wizard was taking _Hello there, folksss_ him for a fool.

"You had spoken of a well-traveled and seasoned guide; not a small boy too young for whiskers," he stated. He was wasting his time here.

"I had spoken of a well-traveled and seasoned guide, yes. This guide just so happens to have the face of a small boy too young for whiskers. I spoke nothing regarding the two being mutually exclusive," the Wizard informed him naturally. Thorin's scowl was one of aggravation.

"This son of Man cannot have seen twenty harvests," he stated. "How do you claim him to be seasoned?"

The Wizard only gave him one of his trademark looks, that said he knew better and everybody should just shut up, and heed his word, before saying, "Trust me, Thorin, son of Thráin, you will find no guide better than Master Gilli Waters on this side of Middle-Earth."

Thorin observed the guide—small boy—in question skeptically. This was absurd; they had a good plan, a fine path on the map. They hadn't the need for a Man—a Man—of all things at the head of his party. Including the Hobbit was bad enough; now Gandalf had told him to turn for the assistance of a Man? The Wizard had assured him that this Gilli Waters would help—Thorin knew all too well the price which he and his company would pay for that assistance; in coin, and quite possibly in life. If indeed the boy was a seasoned guide, he would learn of the goal behind their journey within minutes simply hearing of the landscape they must conquer. When it came to gold, the greed of Men challenged and, at times, surpassed that of his own people.

Only, he had the confidence that none in his Company would drive a dagger through his back in the night and rob him bare.

"We are leaving. I have not the time for this nonsense," he said to the Wizard and turned to walk back outside, to leave behind the small settlement of five hundred Men after a fair rest for the night at the inn where they had rented rooms.

"Master Gandalf." The voice at his back was unfamiliar, high for a boy, but considering his age, or lack thereof, it was of little surprise. "You are late. I was expecting you a half turn of an hourglass past," the boy stated authoritatively. "Is this the Dwarf you spoke to me of?"

Thorin turned back to look aver the boy, hardly a head taller than himself, and by far, shorter than the wizard; all the same, the boys stood with his shoulders squared and his chin up in a defying air of control and command. Arrogance was an unbecoming trait.

"It is, Gilli Waters," the wizard confirmed. "You must pardon my delay. He has not been most agreeable," Gandalf apologized on the Dwarf King's behalf. Thorin would have reprimanded the Wizard for assuming to apologize in his stead, especially as he had no intention to do so himself, but the boy spoke before Thorin had the chance to open his mouth.

"I must do nothing of sorts, Master Gandalf. You have stated you are on a tight schedule, yet you spend my time. I take punctuality quite seriously, you must know, and do not appreciate being kept waiting," he said coolly, looking not at the tall Wizard but at the shorter Dwarf.

"We are leaving," Thorin said angrily. Young, pretentious, arrogant, and without an ounce of respect for authority on top of it all. He had scolded and insulted an ancient wizard and a Dwarf King, all the while claiming to be above wasting his time on both in a single breath.

"We are not," Gandalf said, then turned back to the boy. "I apologize for the tardiness. You are correct; we indeed, are on a deadline. Shall we sit?"

The boy turned his back and walked away, seating himself at a small booth fit for two in the back of the tavern. It was a window seat, providing a good view of the town, three mugs of ale already at the table. Reluctantly, Thorin followed the lead of the wizard, three of his men at his back. He seated himself across from the boy, Gandalf instead opting to sit next to the young lad. The small size of two of the three present allowed for enough space, despite the booth being only meant to house two. His companions took a seat in the booth at the wizard's back, all facing their King.

"You are headed East, I'm told. A poor month to begin the journey; the rains will start soon, and the chill will set in shortly after. You should have traveled two moons past," the boy said. "The rain will corrupt your path. The mountains are treacherous in the rain, eroded, more so than you would typically imagine (though you should). That is your first mistake."

"Dwarves read the stone better than any other creature in Middle-Earth. Who do you think yourself to be, that you would—"

"I think myself to be wiser than you," the Man interrupted shamelessly. "I would have walked two moons past. Though, I assume, this is in part thanks to Master Gandalf. You should have seen me sooner," the boy told the wizard. "Now, I will need several pieces of information: how many will be traveling, what is the deadline, whom are you trying to avoid, and how far do you wish to be led. Your payment will depend on those criteria."

Thorin remained silent, looking at the boy with a fiery intensity that made Balin, sitting behind the boy, cringe slightly. The boy looks on with a dispassionate mask, face as static as still water. It only served to anger the King all the more.

"Thirteen Dwarves, a Hobbit and myself," the Wizard spoke up. "Our path will take us over the Misty Mountains; you may leave us once we come upon the city of Dale."

Thorin gave him a warning look, one that the boy was all too quick to interpret for comfort.

"I care not for where you are going, it is none of my concern where you are going and why you are going there," he told Thorin. "My concern is getting you there all personal intact, getting paid, and getting home. Erebor is no business of mine so rest your mind, Dwarf. I would gladly part with you in the city of Dale. Now, a Company of fifteen total, one a Hobbit and one a wizard. The rest are Dwarves. The deadline?"

"As soon as possible. We must be at our destination before the winter sets in," Gandalf said when it was clear that once more Thorin would say not a single word. He favored scrutinizing the boy in his mind far better than talking to the insolent brat.

"Whomever are we avoiding?"

"Anybody that would hinder us," the wizard said plainly, receiving a nod from the boy, who moved on immediately.

"Show me the map," the lad said. Thorin leaned into the back of the bench, bringing his arm up over his overcoat protectively, where two maps rested. Gandalf looked at him expectantly.

"Show Gilli the map, Thorin. Please." Thorin said nothing, and Thorin did nothing—unless glaring at the boy counted. Again, the boy interpreted the look all too well for comfort.

"Calm yourself, Dwarf. I must see the map to tell you what in your plan is wrong—your plan is with error, don't think to argue that. Every plan is with error. My job is to tell you where they are so at you might evade them, not to ask questions regarding your destination. If it is of no hindrance to me, I do not care for it."

Thorin exchanged a look with Gandalf. The Wizard would not let up, his gaze leaving no room for argument. His eyes seemed to say, 'we haven't the time for this stubbornness.'

When this Man betrayed them in the night, Gandalf would be the one to answer, then, Thorin decided as he reached into the fold of his coat and retrieved the large scale map of the country, folded several times, and placed in on the table. He leaned over it protectively, cautiously, ready to spring at the first sign of trouble. The boy took the map unceremoniously and unfolded it, placing it flat on the table. He looked at it for all of five seconds before pointing on the space between the Misty Mountains and their current town, right on here their path would have crossed.

"You can't pass through here," he said. Every pair of brows that was not the boy's went up. How did he—

"In this time of year it's infested with a kind of insect that attacks the mind. A single bite rendered the bitten mad and disoriented. This mite rarely shows itself. They stay in trees and tall grasses but a large group like yours; they would feast upon and infect you alike. In the two days it would take you to cross their territory, half of you would fall victim, and the antidote is hard to concoct. You will have to round around this way and come back out through here, like this," the boy said, fetching a charcoal pencil from one of the several pockets in his vest and drawing a path. "It adds an extra two days, but there is a village here," he said, dotting the area, "where you might pick up previsions and rest in a proper bed.

"And here, where you would cross in the Mountains," the lad pointed out. "This path is crumbling dangerously. By the time you reach it, it will be untrustworthy to cross. You would have to go past here. It is dangerous, the terrain no better, but it would be far more stable. If you don't happen upon a thunder battle, of course, but the Giants travel with the seasons, so there would be no guarantee that you would cross their paths, nor is there guarantee that you won't."

"The Stone Giants are a myth," Thorin told him impatiently. The boy looked amused.

"So you say now. A very different song you will be singing when you cling for dear life to a moving slab of mountainside rock. And of course you must consider rock slides. Summer rains are a time of crumbling for the Mountains. I would suggest taking this path, like this," he said, dotting a broken line on the map with charcoal, farther south.

"Alas, it would add another week to two weeks to your travels. It would be much safer, but we would then have to cut dangerously through Greenwood and anything that isn't the Common Path or the Kingsroad-" Kingsroad? What the bloody hell is Kingsroad? "—would surely kill you with its toxicity. Also, this range is infested by Mountain Trolls, and Goblins and the terrain is their natural battleground. The steep slopes and narrow passages are where they fight best, however oddly they might go about it, so you must be ready—judging by the sour look on your face I take it you are, reluctant though you may be. I cannot hold it against you; those things are nasty creatures.

"I would suggest breaking here in this bay," he marked off the map once more. At that point half of the black on it was charcoal pencil, unlike a quarter hour before, when it was ink only. "There is a settlement there. In the rain season they are under a constant downpour and crossing the pass to reach them would be dangerous, but they would offer you shelter for a day or two, if you wish to replenish food and water stocks. Also, the inn is quite large, should you wish for a bed."

He pocketed his charcoal and leaned back against the back of the bench, crossing his arms expectantly. Reluctantly, Thorin took back his original opinion—though he would not admit it aloud. Seasoned and well-traveled indeed he was, and experienced beyond his few years.

"By my calculations, including leeway and setbacks, estimated time of arrival would be a week before the final calandra days of autumn. That is considering being taken prisoner, captured, interrogated, injured, ambushed, lost, and taking time to rest and recuperate, one or several of the aforementioned scenarios accounted for accordingly," the guide informed. "Now let us discuss a matter of payment; you cannot afford me."

Once more every pair of brows that was not the boy's own went up, only to lower into an insulted frown.

"If all fifteen of you empty your pockets, you will, perhaps, if luck smiles on you, have enough Coppers and Silvers for three Golds. I get paid half up front, no exceptions, and a journey like this will not come cheap. It would be fifty Golds now, fifty once in Dale, and unless you magic yourself a merchant's purse, you fall short. Astoundingly so, considering who you are.

"Fortunately, it is not Golds that I need of you. You are Dwarves, and as such you speak to the stone, do you not? Thus, you are naturally gifted in finding any precious stone nameable, am I correct? I would overlook the matter of coin if you can pay favor for favor."

Gandalf leaned forward interestedly. Thorin took the map and folded it away. The lad, Gilli, opening his breast pocket and revealed a thrice folded parchment, reaching across to hand it to the Dwarf King. Cautiously, he took it, half convinced the parchment would be stained of poison; by the confident expression of the guide's face. Carefully he unfolded it; in the middle was a talented illustration of a raw, uncut stone no larger than half of his fist, rectangular in shape but rough and sharply angled, it was coloured in white and blue shades characteristic of a moonstone. Around the main illustration were several others, smaller in size, each of the same rock but of different angles.

"That stone," the guide said. "That very specific stone and it alone. Can you find it?"

"What stone is this and what is its importance?" Thorin questioned.

"It was lost many years ago and I have searched it for more than a decade without luck. It belongs to my people and it was stolen fourteen years ago. I wish to recover it," he said plainly, almost with a casual shrug, but from the glint in the boy's eye, Thorin knew this stone meant more to him than a hundred Golds did, more than a thousand, more than a million. The greed of Men truly knew no bounds—for this stone could not belong to Men if it meant so much to the boy. This was an ultimate reward, and it certainly did not belong to the guide. While Thorin saw no natural tells of lie in the lad's face, he was certain it was only because the boy was a skilled wordsmith. He knew of the properties of moonstones, the power they were said to have and the powers they truly did possess.

"No," Thorin answered. The boy took the paper and folded it, hiding it in his breast pocket once more.

"Then you should find yourself another guide, though I cannot promise the structural integrity and wholeness your group with others. I would, however, suggest one Alachai Nadaher. He is seasoned more so than myself and charges less, though only because he often prefers the fast path to the safe one." The boy then picked up his ale and drank it all in large, deep gulps and retrieved five coppers within one of his vest pockets, dropping them within the now empty mug.

"Best regard, Master Thorin, Master Gandalf, Company," he bid them, excusing Gandalf to stand so that he might leave. When he parted, Thorin's companions all exchanged glances of varying emotions—confusion at the blunt answer and dispassionate depart, no small amount of impressed admiration for a job well done, disappointment that he left, relief that the disrespect and cockiness departed with him.

This was certainly not what they have been expecting of a son of Man who, by the looked of it, was sixteen harvests at most. His ability to read maps as well as people was impressive, certainly, and he knew the path they planned to take without a hint as to what it would be. Certainly, Gandalf had not been so bold as to share this information with the boy beforehand? Quietly, his Dwarf companions all piled from their table to join him, and the four engaged in a discussion regarding the young guide, while Gandalf excused himself and disappeared from the tavern.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

Gilli felt the old man might follow her as she rounded the corner. When she realized he was behind her half a moment later, she was none the less surprised to see him; not because she was caught off guard, but because she hadn't been certain he actually would follow her.

"He takes me for a young fool, that one," she remarked angrily, rounding the corner of the bakery near the tavern. She slumped against the wall in exhaustion; heaving a sigh of both anger and sleepiness. Having not slept the night before was taking a toll on her aching body.

"I know full well he can find it, but he takes me for a liar and a thief!"

Gandalf had the gall to checker at that, "Gilli, my dear, I had warned you he would not be the warmest of company."

"That you did, Master Wizard, but you hadn't said he would look at me though I was some obnoxious child, the prat," Gilli hissed angrily. "I traded a hundred Golds for a single stone and he knew full well he could find it, but instead called me a liar and cheat to my face with a single word! Does he think me so stupid as to assume I hadn't realized this, or does he mean insult to injury? How is it that such a man is King? He is insufferable! First he refuses to look at me like I am unworthy of his time—despite having wasted mine gladly—then behaves as though I am no good at my own job! I will not work with him, Gandalf, you will not convince me," Gilli said, crossing arms in defiance all the while standing a head shorter than the wizard.

Gandalf smiled at her with a mixture of amusement and sadness.

"Thorin had lost his home young, and seen the harsh struggles of the world all too sudden. He is slow to trust outsiders, if at all. You cannot fault him for his reluctance."

"No, I cannot, and I don't. I fault him for the insolence of his tone and attitude. I have awaited you for one half hour and when you do grace me with your presence, his back is to my face! Then, when His Grace decides to allow me to gaze upon his royal face, he looks at me though I am some foul stench and he had sucked a bucket of lemons before smelling it! Whatever shred of self-respect I have, Wizard, don't rid me of it. I swear I will throttle him before the sun come up if I have to go back in there and sit across from that insufferable Dwarf. I cannot work with a man like that, Gandalf—you won't make me."

"Perhaps," the wizard began, "you can be persuaded." Gilli shook her head. In answer, Gandalf retrieved something from the folds of his robe and held it up to the guide. She went to snatch it from him but the Wizard was quick to withdraw.

"That is not yours to possess or trade, Wizard," she warned angrily. "Where did you find it?"

"I have found it where you left it. You really should watch where you drop such an object, Miss Gilli, for if it should fall into the hands of the wrong people, bad things may happen to those around you."

"If you seek to threaten me with my own weapon I suggest you depart at once, and find a nice tight hole in the west across the Sundering Sea where you may hide, for I will find you, and I will show you precisely why that is a mistake."

"I mean not to threaten, my dear. Never to threaten. Only to warn. When I recovered this, it was to save it. A large band of some thieves or others had learned what it is and to whom it belongs. Should it have fallen into their hands, it would quickly be sold and stolen again to be sold once more. Once they were rich enough, I assume they would summon its owner."

Gilli ground her teeth angrily, even as she knew this anger was misdirected.

"Tread cautiously, Wizard. You know what I am capable off. Don't push me. If you seek to reclaim Erebor you will do it without me or find a damn good incentive to motivate me otherwise. And give back what is mine," she bit out, snatching for the necklace again. This time he let her have it. She carelessly tucked it into her bosom, readjusting her chest so as to conceal the pendant between her bound breasts.

"A darkness is spreading from the south," the wizard told her. "I fear too soon it will become uncontainable and when that day comes I dread the thought that your people will fall its first victims. Your folk are powerful, Gilli. As much so as the Elves are. Powerful as Elves, proud as Dwarves and on the whole, peaceful as Hobbits. But you are not immune to the dangers of land, nor are you untouchable in your caves. And should your people succumb to the rising darkness, I fear the end would be upon us all in a quarter of the time it would take without you. Erebor and its Dwarves is a force to be reckoned with; a force we need if we are to prevail. For that we need your help, Gilli. No creature that knows Middle-Earth as well as you I can trust. They are too susceptible to the greed the Lonely Mountain would awaken within them, a danger I cannot risk. If we are to make it there fifteen and whole, we need your skill."

"Should they take the Mountain and slay Smaug if the beast still sleeps within, every creature, foul and pure, would turn their eyes to it. Reclaiming the Mountain will only be half a battle; the rest would be to hold it."

Gandalf smiled with satisfaction and said, "You are a smart one, Miss Gilli, and perceptive equally."

Gilli shrugged. "Yes, well, is that not why you approached me in the first place? If you are only now coming to this conclusion then Master Gandalf, I stand insulted," she supplied lightheartedly, drawing a chuckle from the Wizard. He sobered quickly, though.

"Think on it for the night. We will be staying at the inn and move out at dawn. Meet us there or do not. The choice is yours entirely, but we will fare much better with you at our head, Miss Gilli. Your people are worth the effort, regardless what they have done to you."

"The matter is not with history and hurt feelings, Gandalf," Gilli told him softly. "I only cannot afford this trip. I charge fairly, Master Wizard; what I charged in there is such because I cannot afford the time nor the money spent on your journey. I am not alone. And the only other reason I'd be willing to help them for I was denied like an insolent child asking for more sweets than is due. My best, Master Gandalf. Good night," she told him, shoving off the wall and walking into the street, walking in the redirection of where she lived.

The Wizard followed her for a few feet, but stopped at the bakery corner; instead calling out, "Think on it still, Gilli Waters. He may have refused, but I may yet convince him to find the moonstone for you. Good night to you as well."

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

"Mama!"

Gilli was tackled to the hardwood floor having only crossed the threshold of the house moments before, losing balance and landing hard on her hind, but it didn't hurt. She wrapped one arm around the boy, her free hand ruffling his hair, fingers playing through the dark stresses that were so remarkably hers.

"Get off, kid: you're crushing me!" She laughed heartily. Bae leaned back with a wide smile on his face, bracing on his arms and allowing Gilli to take a deep breath. "I thought I told you not to stay up waiting for me? Why are you not in bed?"

"Uncle said that I could wait for you to come back if I lay in bed real quiet. But my tummy started aching and I went in the kitchen to see if I could eat something. I'm hungry, mama," he pouted, and her heart broke a little more. "Can I eat something else?"

"Only a little. Don't want us lot to be hungry tomorrow morning, aye?"

"Aye," the boy agreed eagerly, beaming at her. "Thank you, Mama!" He got up and ran the ten steps to the kitchen. Gilli got up from the floor and dusted herself off.

"Sorry, kid. He had me there."

Gilli looked up at the bedroom door. Finn stood in the archway, leaning on the frame casually with his arms crossed. His white shift, large and baggy on the arms and torso, was wrinkled. "He did the puppy eyes."

"You were always hopeless against the puppy eyes, Finn. You know he will only stop once you stop reacting, right? He'll be twenty and you'll still be feeding him sweets before bedtime at this rate," she told him.

"Well what can you expect, kid? You're his mother, not me," he reminded her with a shrug. Gilli shook her head, coming to lean across from him in the narrow archway, their feet touching at the toes, and crossed her arms also. "How did it go?"

Gilli heaved a tired sigh and shook her head: "They can't afford me, Finn," she admitted sardonically. "They look like bums and scavengers as it is. What little money they have on them they need more than we do. I will not take from them that which they already lack, we can get by by out own."

"And the stone?" Finn asked, again Gilli shook her head in resignation.

"He thinks I'm after some precious jewel of immense power, thinks I look to steal it from its rightful owner and use it with the greed of Men."

"Well, he's not wrong about that first part," Finn supplied tiredly.

"No, he's not, which is exactly why he refused." She let a pregnant pause fall, let Finn maul this over and accept before speaking again. "They were Dwarfs, Finn. They were out last hope."

"You could have guided them and taken the money after taking them wherever the hell they wanted you to take them," Finn told her, his voice almost angry. "Why do you have to be so firm about half up front?"

"Because they are Dwarves, Finn. Because their greed is as notorious as the fornicating habit of our people, as notorious as the vanity of Elves and as notorious as the violence of Orcs. Because they wouldn't pay me a single Copper. They'd kill me sooner than part with a handful of the gold their precious Mountain already have too much of." She sighed heavily, resting her head back against the wooden frame and closing her eyes. She was greatful he hadn't questioned 'the Mountain'.

"… Because taking their money would mean taking what little we have and leaving here, Finn. And I don't want to leave to settle in some new town and start over again. Taking their money would mean I gave up, and if I give up… I don't want their money, Finn. I want mama, and my brothers and sisters, and I want my pod and I want my son to be safe. I'm tired of always running from place to place like a homeless man. I miss my family, I miss my people. I want to go home."

Her voice cracked and Finn pulled her into his large arms, holding her fast as she sobbed, his chin resting on the crown of her head.

"I know, _ma'na_ ," he whispered, kissing her hair and tightening his hold around her as she shook with tears. "I know. I miss mama, too."

"They were our last hope, Finn," she sobbed quietly, whispering the words, lest her son heard. "I left them no choice but to pay with favor. It's just a stupid little rock to them, Finn, and they refused. We will never find it and my son will never know his people."

Finn ran his hands over her back in comfort. "You mustn't despair, _ma'na_. We will find the moonstone, one way or another. I promise. It's just going to take a little longer. You must go to them, lead them wherever they will go, and maybe they will see that you truly need it. They can't be so evil as to deny you a way back to your family. The Dwarf kind lost their home. They will understand if you explain. And if not, we will need the money to keep searching ourselves."

Gilli swallowed her pride, a tangible lump in her throat, because he was right. It had hurt, the way that brooding Dwarf King had looked down at her despite lacking an entire head's worth of height. Even as a boy, his scrutiny was still a slap in the face. She couldn't imagine what would have been had she not traveled as a man but as the woman she was. Finn was right. Of course Finn was right. The Dwarves could not all be so insensitive; at least one would understand if she explained why she needed it. They did lose their home, and now on a quest to retake it from the claws of a dragon, their situations were much the same. At least one was bound to sympathize to her, to help—to at least give her guidance. Thirteen Dwarves and a wizard who might fight to convince them to pay in favor.

It was more hope than the three have had in twelve years of searching and fourteen years of exile.

Gilli straightened up and wiped her face to dry her tears, her eyes hurting from the salt, and nodded.

"You're right," she said. "You're right. I should go with them. If nothing else, we really do need the money, and business has been slow. Will you be all right without me?"

"Must you ask every time?" Finn asked, sounding offended. "It is not the first time you vanish for weeks," he smirked reassuringly.

"Yes, it is not. It is, however, the first time I will be gone for a year at least."

This snapped Finn rigid. The older man looked at her with wide eyes. "A year?" he asked, almost stuttering over his words in shock. "Surely you are mistaken. You can't be gone for four seasons, Gilli. Where in Middle-Earth are you going?"

"To the end of it, I would think," she told him, hugging him again and resting her head comfortably on his wide chest. "It would take until the end of autumn to get there. It will be the dawn of winter by the time I turn back. That journey would take even longer, especially when the ice and snow begins melting. Yes, a year at least."

Instinctively, Finn hugged her to his chest, so tight she could hardly take a breath.

"Then I bid you be safe, _ma'na_. Be safe and vigil and come back whole in four seasons' time. Come with gold or with the moonstone, but return in a year's time. Promise me I will see you then," he urged insistently.

"I will, _me'ne_. I promise," she vowed softly.

"You're leaving, Mama?" Gilli opened her eyes lazily, smiling sadly at her small boy and nodded.

"I have to go help some Dwarves. Do you remember Dwarves? We saw three some years ago. You remember?" The boy nodded. "I will be going far, and for long, but I promise I will come back, my love."

The boy rushed into her arms, wrapping his own tightly around her middle, nudged between her and Finn. "I don't want you to leave me again, Mama! You always leave me and uncle alone! You say it's for work but you always leave, and when you come back we all have to move. I don't want you to go! I don't want you to leave me, and I don't want to leave here. I like it here. It's okay, you don't have to work. I will work in the stables, or the bakery, or the farm; I'll earn enough money so that you don't have to go, but please don't leave us, Mama," the boy pleaded and once more his mother's heart broke for his words.

Gilli ran her hands comfortingly on down his back, having left Finn's embrace to hug her son.

"I know you don't want me to leave, my love; no more do I wish to leave you. I'm sorry I must. But these Dwarves might help us go home. I need their help as much as they need mine." She knelt before him, looking up at his face that was so much like her own, with her dark hair and dark eyes and wide forehead. She brushed his bangs from his eyes tenderly. "They lost their home to an evil dragon; they have it worse than us. If we want to go home, just us three; can you imagine hundreds of them? Three thousand? More, even?"

"I don't want to go home; you do! I want to stay here. This is home. This is where my friends are and where uncle's job is and… and what you want is just a story you used to tell me for bedtime. I don't want a story, I want this, and I want you, Mama, and you're leaving, and I don't know when you'll come back, if you come back, if you'll be all right and… please don't leave me, Mama! Please don't leave!"

He broke down into a fit of tears, hugging her and holding her so tight one would think she would disappear if he let her go. One would think right.

She kissed his hair lovingly.

"I know you like it here, my love. But here is not safe. Here people will always be suspicious, and if they will find out what you are they will try to take you from me. They will want to take you and hurt you, because people are greedy and selfish. They can't be trusted. Not with this, not with us. That's why mama has to leave, my love: so that you can be safe from people like that."

Bae sobbed and hugged her tighter. She let him stay until the boy fell asleep in her arms and then, with Finn's help, laid him to bed. They left the bedroom the three shared to speak in the kitchen.

"When are you going?"

"At dawn the Wizard said they would embark from the inn," she said as she packed things into two saddlebags and a carry-on pack. "I will meet them one half an hourglass turn sooner." He looked at her solemnly as she packed, dashing about the house hastily for basic necessary items, which in truth were many. She paused at the small kitchen table and looked at him with a sad smile.

"I will write," she promised. "I will send Saezae to you every fortnight with news of my travels. You needn't worry, _me'ne_ ," she assured him, placing a loving hand on his forearm. His covered her fingers with his own and squeezed tightly.

"I hate being part from you for so long. Weeks on end are bad enough. I don't know how to take a year without you, raising Bae on my own. I am no father; not to that boy, not to you nor anybody else, Gilli."

Gilli smiled at him compassionately and placed her other hand over his, squeezing it much like he has done with her. "You will not fail, _me'ne_. I have every confidence you will raise him well and honorably. I only wish I didn't have to miss his fourteenth year."

"When we return home you will spent every one of his years with him," Finn promised her. Gilli pursed her lips, the lump of tears in her throat so thick that it stung.

She held those words in her mind, held them as tight as she held her big brother, and made them her mantra. She vowed that, should she ever lose hope on this journey, she would remember them, and she would force her feet one before the other even in her deepest despair.

She slept restlessly that night, and only for a handful of hours. An hour before dawn broke she untangled herself from Finn on the narrow straw mistress, kissed both him and her son on the hairline and touched her forehead to theirs traditionally. She didn't say goodbye—she couldn't. Then she took her things, saddled her horse, fed Saezae and set out to find the inn on the other side of the town, turning around one last time to watch the house sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

"I will bring us home," Gilli vowed and, with that, tucked her long braid into her hat and went to find the company of fifteen.


	2. Cause And Effect

Hello, my lovely readers! The first chapter was very well received so here was the second. I hope you liked it :))

Many thanks to my wonderful beta, wildhorses

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _2 / Cause and Effect_

* * *

Gandalf returned to the tavern where Thorin and the others were still sitting, now all at one table, discussing in hushed tones.

"It seems Master Waters has made quite an impression upon you," the old pilgrim commented, no small amount of amusement clear in his voice. The meeting had gone better than he planned, truthfully.

Several insults were swept under the metaphorical table to be sure, but at least no blood had been drawn (which really spoke volumes: last time Gilli took a Dwarf across Middle-Earth both sported no small amount of injury, each of them caused by the other. Of course, he only knew of this tale because it was the only time somebody got injured on her watch. And a humorous tale it was, too).

Thorin looked unimpressed with his lighthearted statement.

"You have advised me to find a guide to take us across all of Middle-Earth, not to find a job babysitting a temperamental child with a control complex and no sense of where his place is."

"I would not go so far as to argue against Master Waters' narrow temper, but I assure you he is the one for the job. If anyone can take you across, it's Gilli. If you had your doubts about the lad, why not stop him from coloring on your map?" The wizard asked.

Thorin retrieved the large scope map from the folds of his coat, unfolding it. Before them lay all of Middle-Earth, now with the directional additions; contributed by the young lass playing at being a boy.

Wisely, Thorin's lack of trust kept him from revealing their intent and Gandalf could not fault him for that. Though Gilli was quick to guess them, in the very least she didn't know they had a coded key as to the how part of the quest; how they would retake Erebor.

Gilli was driven by a just cause, certainly, but a mountain of treasure… Smaug may not have been seen in more than half a century, but that would not stop her from kindling a hope in her heart that the moonstone she sought after was within the city of gold. Even with her only motive to be the clearing of her name and taking her brother and son home, telling her was dangerous. There would be no telling what she would do had she suspected the Dwarves came by the Queen of the Heavens and withheld it.

Yes, the longer she though their quest futile and the Mountain permanently sealed, the better. He would not risk incurring her wrath quite yet; not when he couldn't control her should things turn for the worst.

He would wait and see.

"It has been years since any of us traveled far beyond the Blue Mountains," Balin said to Thorin. "Getting to the Shire alone was a challenge; the land has changed and we have aged. If nothing else, the lad knows what he is talking about. We may not need him, but he would be useful."

"I know what help he sought to give us," Thorin said. "For too long my people have been at the mercy of Men, used like dogs and cast away once they ceased to be of use to them. I will not see it happen again, certainly not within my own ranks. If he seeks to steal, he will not be using us to do so."

"Thorin, I assure you: that boy is nothing if not honorable," Gandalf said. "I have known Gilli, and of Gilli, for long enough to promise you that if Master Waters says something, he means it. And if he says he has no care for your Mountain and your intentions for it, then, if will not trust his word, trust mine: he does not."

"Then why, tell me, did he seek the moonstone? Not any moonstone; that very specific one. Having gone to such lengths as to sketch it, what is it to him?"

"An old keepsake that has no effect upon your quest or your people," Gandalf assured him. "I can promise you, that stone belongs rightfully to Gilli's people as much as the Lonely Mountain belongs to yours."

"He told you this?" Thorin said. "And you believe him. That boy is nothing more than that; a boy. If it means so much to him, it is clearly more than a simple rock. If a single stone means so much to him I will not take him within fifty leagues of Erebor."

"Thorin, that stone should mean as much to you as Erebor does to him; and that is precisely nothing. The boy, as you insist upon calling Master Waters, was only doing his job," Gandalf told him irritably.

"Does his job entail trading a route for a stone; the purpose and power of which we know not? Men cannot be trusted," he said. "I will not risk the safety of the quest and my people for the whims of a child incapable of accepting that his words and attitude will get him nowhere." He was almost shouting now, and heads began to turn. Thorin lowered his voice and his gaze and said, "We needed the Hobbit because he is unfamiliar to Smaug. The guide is unnecessary. The lands have changed, yes, but not enough as to be unrecognizable. We will fare well enough without him."

Oh, the stubbornness of Dwarves! Here he had thought convincing Gilli to come was difficult. At least she had an ulterior goal (the acquiring of which he could assist with), but Thorin was twice the work and twice the pain. Gandalf knew that Erebor would be a key component should the darkness spreading in the south continue to other lands. Its strategic position could either loose them a war, or win one. But Gilli's people lived much further southeast and even held up in their caves they were not untouchable, and if the darkness took them then the rest of Middle-Earth hadn't a chance to survive.

"Your Company would be better off with him," the wizard urged. "He is skilled in his field, fair to charge and, I assure you, the only one who will not press forward once they set their eyes upon your Mountain. Tell me, Thorin, if it is his potential greed that you so fear, why did he walk away? It was clear that you could not afford it, but the promise of the riches of Erebor would sway even the most skeptical. Surely he had heard of the sign, traveled as he is. Why, then, did he abandon the golden hoard within the Lonely Mountain? If it is only the stone he wants than let him have it and be done."

Gandalf knew Thorin could have any number of responses to that, including what may happen if the lad doubted the success of their mission and did not wish to be on the receiving end should Smaug still be holed up in the mountain. So he met the Dwarf King's glare dead on and was unrelenting.

"I am not asking you to trust Gilli with your secrets; I am asking you to trust him to do his job."

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

Gandalf rose early, as daylight began to paint the skies from black to blue, but the sun not yet kissed the horizon. It would soon enough, of course, and the other fourteen members of his—Thorin's—Company would rouse with it. He had a good feeling about this morning. A very good one.

The grey pilgrim stood outside by the front doors of the large inn—this town relied heavily on the incoming and outgoing traffic of travellers—waiting no more than a handful of minutes before he spotted a large black horse, its reins in the hand of its familiar small rider. The woman was once more a man, the dark hair he knew to be long, hidden under a triangle-tipped hat. Gilli carried with her a pack on her back, large enough to fit a substantial number of things but small enough to be light. It hung on her right shoulder, the other being occupied by a moonbow, the height of which surpassed the cross-dressed guide's. Across her chest was a wide belt, a number of multipurpose knives sheathed along its width and length, and hanging at the bottom, at her right hip, was a sword.

The baggy sleeves bunching at her cuffs and numerous layers of clothing covering her torso did their job at hiding every womanly curve she possessed. The only giveaway to the deception was, perhaps, entire lack of facial hair, though as Thorin was so kind to point out last night, it could easily be written off for young age. The absence of stubble made the 'boy' appear all the younger. She looked well in the shades of green and mahogany she dressed herself in, disturbingly so, considering her natural domain was not the forest but the sea.

Gilli stopped in front of him and he smiled at her, knowing well her train of thought; it was written all over her face in an annoyed scowl—sneaky bastard wizard knew I'd be coming. Seeing her thought play out of her face and how she was quick to cover it, her plain expression as still as water, widened the wizard's smile all the more.

"You will aid me in convincing them to find the stone, and I will agree to forget the incident with the necklace," she told him naturally. Yes, the necklace. Her necklace. Her stone. The most important item a Nymph can possess. He knew well enough why she'd rid herself of it, but even the risk of keeping it at the time was far overshadowed by the danger of it being discovered by the wrong person, which it nearly was. Her stone was a raw, uncut ruby with a pink undertone, opaque and vitreous in luster. Amazingly, it did little by way of actually helping the woman with anything besides channeling and focusing her energy. Though, mayhap this was due to her long separation from the leather-threaded pendant.

"You have my word, Master Gilli," he assured her. Her cause was just and wise, but naming her a man never ceased to amuse him. She looked a small child, playing make-believe with their elders' clothes. "I would see the moonstone returned to you and subsequently to your people," Gandalf assured her. She nodded, satisfied. He had spoken extensively—and loudly—with Thorin last night regarding seeing her again in the morning and eventually he huffed and walked away in anger, the closest thing to an agreement Gandalf would get from the Dwarf King.

(He had cringed last night, when several times she used incorrect terminology that was incongruent with Westron, having translated some locations inaccurately in her mind once more. That particular slip of the tongue was the first, and Gandalf feared there would be many to follow. That would make the Company all too suspicious of her. More so than they already were; a highly ill-at-ease thought to think.)

"Good," she said. "Get this straight: you hired me to guide them. I follow your rules and yours alone for this, and you will be the one to pay me when this comes to an end. I will take orders from no one else; so if your Lemon King thinks to dictate my actions, he will be sorely disappointed and—if he continues looking at me as he had in the tavern—aching something fierce. I must discuss terms and regulations regarding safety so if you please gather them at dawn as agreed, I would have words with the men," she informed him coolly, and he was once again reminded why she was perfect for the job.

"You may call them down yourself, Master Gilli," he told her. "As the company has awakened."

He knew she would not ask how he knew this—he knew she trusted, if not him, than his power and knowledge as a wizard, enough to not question him when he spoke.

"Good," Gilli said. "Then we break our fast and leave in one half hour," she instructed and walked away in the direction of the tavern. The streets were empty, save for the odd passer-by, so he knew the Dwarves would have the tavern to themselves long enough to eat and leave without causing too much disturbance based solely on great numbers (and, of course, the disturbance bound to be caused by placing Gilli Waters and Thorin's Oakenshield in one room). Gandalf felt good about this morning indeed. She had yet to sign a contract and hire papers, and already she commanded with the firm hand of a leader and caretaker.

Yes, he made a good choice with her.


	3. Little Talks

Well, here was the third chapter! I hope you guys liked it, and if you did let me know! If you didn't, still let me know, because if you don't I'll never know what to fix, so constructive criticism is something I like to hear almost as much as praise :)

See you guys next chapter!

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _3 / Little Talks_

* * *

She couldn't say she remembered all their names. Actually, she couldn't say she remembered half. Dwarvish names were astoundingly alike to one another, so much so that they were near indistinguishable, and yet she could not wrap her tongue around a single one of them for their complexity. They were meant for only the rough speech of the Dwarvish people. All thirteen, a wizard and a Hobbit gathered about four tables, squeezing tightly together as much as numbers allowed. She assumed they were all told of her now, but as she finished breaking her fast, she introduced herself nevertheless.

Before meeting the lot, Gandalf had expressed to her that it took much convincing for any of them to see her, so she had to be brief and to the point, but polite all the same. If last night was anything to go by, his advice alone would be a feet to accomplish.

"It's good to make your acquaintances, gentlemen. My name is Master Gilli Waters; I have been recruited by Master Gandalf as a travel guide to your party last night. I have conferenced with your leader, Master Thorin, this past night, and we came to an agreement regarding this journey and the path it will take." There was no agreeing; he hardly spoke ten words. However, he pocketed the map she covered in illustrations and made no comment regarding them, so she considered this a civil agreement. "Several changes had to be made to your route and these changes are not necessarily safe, but, as both Masters Thorin and Gandalf have expressed, you are on a tight schedule. It is because of this that I come to you now with three basic rules:

"First; I expect things to go badly—when they do, nobody plays for hero. I want to see no solo action made on a whim because you are too proud to not draw an ax. You will act only as instructed and not step a foot out of line. Second; always maintain visual and verbal contact. I want each of you to always be within the field of vision of two others. I care not whether you are scouting or stopping for a piss—you stay together at all times. Third; please refrain from thinking you know better than I: old and wise as you may be, you do not. You will be held solely accountable for the consequences to breaking one or several of these rules. If you have questions, ask them now."

Someone raised their hand hesitantly, mouth open. "Why exactly are you here?"

"Because Master Gandalf though it to be a good idea. I make no to pretence know his trail of thought and motivation, but know him well enough to trust his word. As of now, my only purpose is to get you from here to there as uneventfully as possible and get out of your way," Gilli explained.

"Your face inspires little conference in your skill," the same Dwarf said. There was no intended insult in his tone, no malice or meaning to hurt. He was simply stating a fact, and one that she could not dispute, at that. She knew she looked young—too young. All the same, she ground her teeth and glared angrily.

"Yes, I have been made well aware of that over the years, and do not appreciate any comment regarding my age, thank you kindly," she told the Dwarf firmly, but her words were meant for the entire group collectively. "As you know your rocks and stones, I know these lands, and it is my job to get you there fifteen and whole. Try as I might, I suspect you will make my job exceedingly difficult. Follow these three simple rules and I would be very grateful. I swear to you, every expedition I take out, there is always one idiot trying to test me on the first day. Please don't be that idiot. Master Thorin, I do not like the look you are giving me, and request that you put it away now," she said without looking at him. Instead Gilli opted to look at all fifteen collectively, speaking not only to the Company's leader, but the group itself, too.

"I am Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thror, the last King under the Mountain—"

"A lovely accomplishment, Master Dwarf, I'm sure. I do not appreciated being side glanced at as though I were some foul stench. I asked you to put that look away."

The Kind stood, his chair screeching across the wood with the motion. The guide stood, too, her serene, unmoved expression a stark contrast to his insulted anger. The rest of the Company wisely took several steps back. They made not a sound. They held their breaths. It was rather a little amusing.

"I do not know whom you presume yourself to be, boy, but Dwarf or not, you will start showing me the adequate respect due for a King or I will see to it that you are shown why that respect is due," he growled, his right hand slowly, almost unnoticeable inching to his belt where his weapon was. Gilli remained unmoved. "These are my men and they will not follow the whims of a pup old enough for nothing but to cling to his mother's skirts and issue tantrums regarding leadership. Should I give a command they will follow it—"

"Yes, they are your men. I am not. If I say to do something, I expect you to relay this to them identically—"

"You think to order me around, boy? I have done you a courtesy allowing you to see us after the words you spat last night, a courtesy I have not given before. Your job is to not lead us astray. As you are focused on that, I highly suggest you keep from angering me and not speak out of place, of things which you know nothing about," he said, his voice rising.

"Did you just tell me to shut up?" Gilli knew she was about to say something very rash and very stupid, and ignored the warning look Gandalf cast her over the surrounding crowd in favour of saying it. Oh, that disrespecting prat! "Must I remind you of the errors within the path you and your men planned? I suspected, after so many years of wondering these lands you would know better."

One of the Dwarves watching whispers, "Did the kid just call him old and stupid in the same breath? You have to give it to him: the kid had balls, out of place though they are."

"Not for long, if the look Thorin is giving him is any indication," another answered the first. She admitted that the look Thorin was giving her was more than impressive. It really did make her cringe internally and if not for her own pride to stay standing it would have shown on her face, too. "And well-deserved, too. No manners, that one."

"Yes, and 'the kid' is neither deaf nor ignorant," Gilli said, effectively shutting them up. "Master Thorin, my job is not to walk straight and shut up; it is to keep you alive. If you wish for me to do so, I suggest you do as I tell you, as I do not speak idly. It is in your own interest to heed my words." Speaking so calmly hurt. She wanted to strike him for his words, to lash out and break his nose and bloody his royal face some, but she fisted her hands and grit her teeth and spoke evenly.

"It is in your interest to remember who you are and who I am," Thorin threatened—growled, more like—his voice sharp, teetering on the edge of snapping. "You are here by courtesy of Master Gandalf, nothing more. I suggest you either remember this or get out."

"Precisely, I am here by Gandalf's grace and as such follow only his word. The rest of you are under my care. Let me do my job adequately or the first injury is on your hands," she told him, voice rising. "I have never had any complaints so I suggest you take yours and—"

The rest went unsaid for two reasons; the first being Thorin himself, who looked about one word out of her mouth away from shoving the table and putting her neck on an ax (and really, she wouldn't put it past him. Iron exterior or not, the Dwrf frightened her something mighty), and Gandalf, who sent her a cautioning look which she had enough sense to heed even in her anger. She took a deep calming breath and counted down from ten in her mind.

"So I say why not you do your job and let me do mine in a civil manner that will not get anyone killed. I am sure if we work together as civil people, we will accomplish much more than if we bicker like an old married couple." Gandalf nodded with relief, and a collective sigh of disappointment rolled over their audience. It was then that for the first time she noticed both she and Thorin had leaned dangerously over the table, in each other's space and were glaring deadly at one another, hands in tight, white-knuckled fists pressing painfully into the wood.

She heard someone whisper lowly, almost too low for her to catch, "The table still stands; pay up."

"Kindly refrain from placing bets on my leadership, Master Dwarf," she said, not taking her eyes off Thorin's.

Again, someone whispered, "He caught you; pay up."

"I thought you were told to refrain," Thorin said.

She could see what he wanted to say—aside from several crude obscenities—could see the reprimand he was mentally handing to Gandalf for forcing him to work with her:

"The kid is not coming with us, Gandalf. I will not have the pretentious (he might have said a word in his own tongue here) undermining my authority at every turn as though I am nothing but a smith he can insult upon childish whim."

Oh, she had no wish to work with him as well.

"Gandalf has offered sufficient payment." In your stead, she refrained from saying, as she straightened up and gripped the edge of the tabletop tightly, "And thus made it my job to keep you all alive and uninjured. Please allow me to do my job efficiently, and we will not have to see of much of each other the rest of the way. What say you we get past this squabble and exchange signatures?"

Speaking the words hurt her as much as, she was sure, for Thorin to hear them. Both of them turned their eyes to Gandalf, knowing well that if they exchanged more words, the table, which one of the Dwarves had kindly pointed out was still standing, would not be. That and she knew she had a point, much as Thorin refused to admit it: they hadn't the time for this.

"That would be a most wise course of action, yes," Gandalf said, looking pointedly at her. Gilli all but snarled—the traitor. You were meant to be on my side, she thought. Thorin didn't move. He glared at her, clearly expecting an apology she wouldn't give. She glared at him also, expecting resignation he would not give.

"We haven't the time," Gandalf reminded them. "Gilli, Thorin, kindly do not throttle one another before the day has broken. Sign the contracts and let us continue our journey," he urged.

Reluctantly, both fetched large squares of folded parchment.

She carefully read over Thorin's contract, brows rising to her hairline at some of the dangers the Company was 'not held accountable for,' the terms and conditions that sounded much like her own, the payment—a hundred Gold pieces or the moonstone she researched for, one or the other, but she would not have both—as Thorin carefully examined hers. Neither was very happy with either, but signed it nevertheless. They exchanged parchments and folded them away.

"We move," Thorin commended before she could open her mouth. She scowled but picked her pack up off the ground, left coins and a tip for the waitress, and followed them out. She got her horse, holding the reins lightly as the others mounted their ponies. With them on horseback, it made her the shortest of the group, a fact she was used to but didn't much like. All the same, she felt it would be best if she walked by her horse rather than mounting it. Had she gotten on him, she would tower over the rest of the Company, and she was certain Thorin wouldn't like it very much if she surpassed him on that front. It would look like a challenge of authority; and while a part of her wanted to see his face, the other part knew she would be on the receiving end of Gandalf's disapproval.

Besides, she didn't like being so high off the ground. Not for fear of heights, but because she enjoyed feeing the earth, being bodily connected to it; something that both literally and figuratively would be out of her reach had she sat in a saddle. Instead she made her way to the front of the group, walking off to the side and little behind the head of the Company when Gandalf sent her a warning glance about once again undermining authority.

Oh, she could spit on their blasted authority! As guide, the head of the group was her place. One she learned to share with another, certainly, but her place all the same! As she neared the front she noted several Dwarves leaning in toward each other, as if to say something quietly, but groaned with disappointment when she made no attempt at physically leading the group. Oh, did she not ask to not place bets? She asked them, did so nicely, and still they… Oh, it made her so angry, she could punch something!

Instead, she let Thorin lead his people and walked a respecting distance behind him, off to the side, and didn't stay a word, keeping her anger in check. Overhead, Saezae flew circles around the group like a watchful guardian.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

"How good a guide can you be, if you had misnamed such an important landmark?" Thorin's demanded. Gilli bristled at him.

"I had not misnamed it, Master Oakenshield," she argued in her defence. "I simply mistranslated it. My people have a different name for the Old Forest Road. We call it the Kingsroad is all. It is the very same landmark."

"Am I to trust your word on this, if you cannot memorize the common name for the Road? You would lead us astray with your foreign terminology," he accused heatedly. They had been arguing for close to ten minutes over the map that she had sketched. "How well can you lead the Company if you cannot name a single road? Had you not come with us, we would have been searching for a road the name of which we have never heard for the simple fact that it does not exist."

"I will not have you demeaning the language and culture of my people, Master Oakenshield," she said dangerously. She and let her horse wander freely beside the Company, ambling behind and nibbling on grass. Now her hands were occupied with two map corners closest to her, explaining what she had dribbled and written. Her Westron was not very fetching in tongue, her accent present even after the decade and a half, and her writing was worse for wear still. "I have always referred to it as the Kingsroad and never has anyone complained. If anything, that means it is you who is behind on the common names of places, Master Dwarf. I do not even understand why it is called an Old Forest Road. It is a road, in a forest, used by the forest Kind to get from one place to another. Certainly, that title makes far more sense logically."

"It is a road, it is old, and it crosses the Mirkwood forest. It is the plainest name conceivable, boy."

"It is called Greenwood, Master Thorin—not Mirkwood. Mirkwood is a silly nickname invented because of its deterioration. Certainly you would not tease an ill forest overcome by dark sorcery?"

"I care not for that garden of filth," Thorin spat, as if the thought of the forest itself left a bad aftertaste on his tongue. "It is the Old Forest Road crossing Mirkwood. I suggest you acclimate to the common tongue as not to confuse the rest of us. You are positively useless in this way. How well can a foreigner lead us through a land not his own if he cannot even speak the language adequately?

"Oh, you are insufferable, Dwarf! I may be a foreigner in these lands but I know them better than you, by the looks of things, if this is the path you wanted to take your people across," she accused, tracing the path she knew he wanted to take originally. "How long have you been traveling these lands, Master Oakenshield, and yet you do not know such simple details as the ones I pointed out last night? Have you not traveled for near a century and a half?"

"Our wonderings are none of your concern. Your job is not to ask questions, boy—"

"—My job is what I say it is, Dwarf," she cut in. "And never again imply for me to shut up. You are not my father, you are not—gods forbid— my husband, so if you have any complaints regarding my words I suggest you—you keep them to yourself," Gili amended before she could say something she very much wanted to. She had to hold her tongue. So instead of risking speaking insult, she changed the subject:

"We must cover five to eight leagues of land before breaking for the night. In the first week of travel we must cover the most distance. Afterward, we may slow down to a more comfortable pace," she informed knowingly. "For now we may camp with fires and speak as loudly as you wish. Afterward, however, we will have to keep dark and silent, lest to attract the wrong kind of attention. By then we will be too far into the wilds, no man's land, though this I am sure you know all too well. All the same, this chatter behind me will have to die down soon enough so I suggest you advise your men to start practicing that; effective immediately."

Gilli had encountered Dwarves before, and knew well enough they were nigh incapable of being silent. If a brawl broke out, half the countryside knew names of each involved, and their mothers.

"My men are more than perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. If you fear for your safety than perhaps you should not have come," Thorin said.

"It is not your men's capability to hold their own that I do not trust, Master Thorin," she said, steeling herself, "It is their ability to not trample and shout so loudly as to alert Smaug himself of your approach from fifteen leagues away. I say this not out of spite, Master Thorin. I say it because I have encountered Dwarves before, and I have seen—heard—how they are. I know they are warriors to rival many, and too stubborn to step aside when it is clear they should," Gilli told him pointedly. "So surrounded by your Company, we are perhaps the safest any of us had been in decades. But it would be preferable to not win the fights so much as to simply not encounter them to begin with, Master Thorin."

Oh, to think: she was to miss her own son's fourteenth year for that man!

See, she thought, I can do it; I can swallow my pride and smile sweetly and speak in courtesies as a woman should.

He was her last hope of finding the moonstone, after all. Once she had it, she would never miss another of her son's years. She could be with him every day and settle in a single place where he would make fast friends and be at home among his people. She had to think of Bae. She had to think of her son.

Gilli would not screw this up, even if she had to choke on her own pride and his in order to gain his support. Of course, she would not bend over and take it silently like dog, but she could be civil (though if he wanted any degree of coexistence, he would have to learn to follow her rules and keep his comment behind a shut mouth when they weren't asked for). She would have to be, despite how much she sometimes wanted to punch him in that regal face of his.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

He could be civil. He could be the picture of civility for all to take example of. He was a Durin, and as such it was his job to put on a face and solve disputes of power calmly, as not to entice a war—despite knowing he would win it. Thus, he held his tongue and the insult sitting on the tip of it in favor of ignoring the lad walking some distance behind him, where he belonged.

The lad was good at his job, as far as Thorin could tell, and so he agreed to keep an even mind. The boy had done him not much offence (though, the offence he did offer was surely enough), and so long as he did his job and did it well, he was of no bother to the King. Thorin was very much satisfied with ignoring much of what the guide said until they reached Dale.

Even so, he was hard pressed to restrain himself and not punch the lad in his overconfident face. The nerve of him!

Having been at the mercy of Men for a many decades, he knew the best ways to deal with them. Some had to be threatened by show of brutal force; others could be negotiated with calmly enough until both parties were more or less satisfied with the result. Of course, negotiations always meant that neither party would be perfectly happy and both would have to sacrifice something, and that was something he could respect enough of it had the desired outcome. Master Gilli Waters fell under the third category: ignore the problem until the problem gave up and went away, and hope to all the gods that they did not kill one another in sleep.

The kid was either an idiot or lacking any sense of self-preservation whatsoever to have gone up against him as he had in the tavern. Twice. In front of his subordinates, no less! Not only had the boy challenged his authority but he insinuated that anyone can get away unscathed, doing it! He would be having heated words with Gandalf on the matter later when they were alone.

To Thorin's understanding he would have to weather the kid for several months only, and then he would never see that smug, punchable face again. Until then, if the kid wanted to earn any level of mutual tolerance he would simply have to learn to follow orders as issued and shut his mouth when his senseless commentary was unneeded.


	4. Tales Of A Lost Kingdom

Chapter four up! Thank you everyone, so much, for all the reads and follows and favourites and reviews you leave me, they are all so lovely! I hope you all liked this chapter. So far, Gili and her outburst are going petty unpunished but don't worry, she'll get what's coming to her ;)

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this and I will see you next time!

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _4 / Tales Of A Lost Kingdom_

* * *

Dwalin has traveled and lived among Men for the better—worse, if he was being technical—part of his life. Whether he liked it or not the villages of Men were the best chance any of his brethren had of making money. When one hadn't the opportunity to feed themselves or their family they had to grit their teeth, close their eyes, and do what they had to do in order to survive. Thus, he had met enough races to know what they were all made of; greed, selfishness and hateful.

It was the way of the world and frankly he didn't complain. He hadn't much but he had enough, something not everybody could claim. He knew how to get by.

So, when he met one Master Gilli Waters, he was not the least bit surprised. Sure, he had met his share of decent people and his share of ugly people (both within and without), and this Gilli Waters was nothing new. Gilli Waters was just another face in the sea of faces, young though that face was, and so he would have remained quite had the boy not done something very, very stupid: squared his shoulders, set his jaw, crossed his arms, and dared Thorin to do something about it. And, with all the grace and wisdom of a child, all but told him, "You're not my mother; you can't tell me what to do."

Thus began the long string of arguments and fighting that was sure to ensue, if the road so far was any indication. Of course, though, simply fighting with one another was too easy. No, if the kid kept going head to head with Thorin, that would make him too simple. Instead he grit his teeth and closed his eyes and did what he had to do: he bit his tongue. And if the past several days were anything to go by, he didn't do that for just anyone.

This begged the question: what did he want? It clearly pained the boy to stand with his mouth shut, and he caught himself mid-sentence and wisely changed topic all too often. Which only lead to a single conclusion: he needed the Company.

Dwalin had seen the moonstone rock drawing the boy had handed Thorin in the tavern—all three Dwarves accompanying him had—and so it left them all wondering what exactly he needed with that stone. Making the situation worse, he had noticed how the boy had looked at each of them, and that was with an utter lack of interest.

It wasn't that he didn't care as much, as that he was entirely unmoved by each of the Dwarf warriors. Dwalin knew well what they looked like, knew that each of them elicited either pity or fear and mistrust from everybody who had ever set eyes upon them. Each Dwarf was armed to the teeth with deadly weapons that had tasted their share of blood, and the layers of scars lining each one of them was enough to make people wonder.

Gilli Waters hadn't once flinched or stared.

He wanted that stone. He wanted it bad. And anyone who wanted something that hard was dangerous.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

"We have been walking for a week and still you insist on ignoring everything I say to you! Have I magically turned invisible? Or, and this is more likely, did you become deaf?"

Gilli wasn't angry. She was past being angry. Being angry was what she did these seven days spent in the acquaintances of the Dwarves. Now she was about five seconds away from throwing her arms up in the air and screaming to the heavens for sweet mercy.

"We have been traveling relentlessly for leagues; just today we have covered five. Our ponies are run down and my men are tired. If your fear is Orcs than would you prefer we fight them by half?"

"I prefer, Master Thorin, that we not come across any Orcs to begin with, which is why I say we stop now for a brief pause to recuperate and move throughout the night. The more ground we cover, the better."

"We have not eaten since the morning, boy—"

"Stop calling me that! How many times have I asked you, nicely, to not call me a boy? I am not a boy!"

"What number of harvests have you seen, then?"

"I would be seeing my twenty sixth this autumn, if you must know, Dwarf. I am far from 'boy'."

"Twenty five makes you the youngest one present by forty seven years. You are right: you are far from 'boy'. You are hardly a toddler."

Gilli let loose a scream of rage. "Grah! That's it, I swear to you, one more comment regarding my age or stature, and the next thing to come out of your mouth will be your teeth! I am tired of this! I do my job, I do it well, and if I tell you to break now and move throughout the night, then you will heed my words or you will shoulder the blame."

Gilli moved to the side, narrowly missing a fist connecting with her check. It grazed her face but not a quarter as hard as it would have had she not moved. She reeled back, raising her fist to retaliate but caught herself before she could properly swing. Instead she put her knuckles into her mouth and bit her hand.

"Grah! That's it, I am done with you! You are impossible!"

"I am impossible?"

"Yes, you are impossible. You ignore me, you outright call me stupid and incompetent, and you are obnoxiously going out of your way to do everything exactly the opposite of what I ask! I give up! That's it; that was the last straw! I am done talking to you!"

"You are done with me? You are a child with a temper tantrum. You are incapable of accepting that you are not in charge of something for once in your life, you are insecure about your lack of power and you take that anger out on my men. I will not have you starving and depriving them of rest on a whim. We are stopping tonight and if you are unsatisfied than by all means, keep walking.

"We are too far into the wilds to be starting fires in the night," Gilli argued.

"That is precisely why we must stop and replenish our strength, boy."

There was a moment of silence. Complete silence. The Company watched with bated breaths, waiting for Gilli to live up to her words and throw the first punch. Oh, wouldn't that be a show for them; watching her get her arse handed to her by a man she had to kneel to be at eye level with? She ground her teeth so hard she was afraid they would break, and then threw her arms up in the air in defeat with an exaggerated cry.

"Fine! Fine, have it your way. I will be the one saying, I told you so, when this backfires," she hissed and walked away, even as he pocketed that stupid map and got back on his stupid horse. She marched away toward the back of the group, breathing heavy through her nose, trying to calm herself. "He thinks he knows better than I," she muttered under her breath. "I have three rules. Three! Is that really so hard to bloody keep track of? I am not asking him to bloody cut his arm off; only to stop, rest, and keep going, but no! How could he ever listed to a g—guide like me. No, that would surely shame him and his testicles would fall off if he listened to someone who wasn't himself—"

Something hit the back of her head. Something hard; and it made the base of her scalp sting something mighty. She froze. The chatter, having resumed as she walked, once more ceased. She touched the back of her head in confusing and turned around with her eyes on the ground. At her feet lay a small stone.

She looked up, meeting everyone that was behind her moment ago dead in the eye. She did this twice more before someone cracked up, straight face breaking into a wide, proud grin. It was a tall Dwarf with raven hair, the one she recognized to be the youngest. He snickered to his brother, who quickly joined in the mirth.

Gilli bent down and picked up the rock, tossing it up in the air and catching it. Everyone around the two had the good grace to reel their ponies a small step back. They were disappointed when she tossed the rock up but didn't catch it.

"I'm not in the mood for your games," she said firmly and turned around again. It took her two steps to regret it. Something hit her again, harder this time and she squealed like a mouse, jumping into the air and grabbing her arse with a sharp cry of pain. She turned back around. The two brothers were no longer on their respective ponies.

"Did you just…?" The brothers burst out laughing shamelessly.

"You scream like a girl," the black haired one accused. Gilli tilted her head to the side, unimpressed, and arched a brow.

"Oh?" She picked up the rick and threw it at them, not hard enough to maim but with enough force to make it hurt. They dodged it easily enough. It both amused and angered her; blasted Dwarf reflexes! She picked up another pebble and hurled it at the two. They sidestepped it and each picked up a rock. Each of the three were carefully not to draw blood and aimed safely below the shoulders. She managed to dodge most, they dodged every single one.

After several stones thrown she gave up. Her tosses were pathetically hopeless.

"That's it, you two are about to get it!" She ran at them. They turned to run away. For Dwarves with such short legs, boy could they run. She, being small of stature, was never a good runner and everyone had always been faster than her. So, when she not only caught up with, but grabbed them by the collar and tackled one of them to the ground, it was a cause to cheer. They fell hard and she crawled over him, turning him over to pin him to the ground.

"Got you," she smirked, but he used it against her and in a moment's time she was on her back.

"Got you."

She rolled them over with much effort and threw her head back, making a disgusting sound in the back of her throat. Then she leaned over his face and slowly, spit began dribbling out of her mouth. His eyes widened and shook his head fiercely, pressing into the ground and away from her.

"No. No, no. Stop that. That is disgusting. Stop it! Fíli! Fíli, help!"

Something hit her in the hind again, a rock, and she lurched forward in surprise. The spit fell just short of the Dwarf's face—he screwed his eyes shut, anticipating it to hit his face, and sighed in relief when it missed.

Gilli got up, letting the Dwarf go and turned to face the other one. He held up another rock and grinned widely with mirth and satisfaction. She picked up a pebble, too, and raised it up, feeling her own face alight with mirth and competition.

Both her face and the rock fell when she realized what she was doing. She straightened up, smoothed her clothing and brushed off and leaves as she cleared her throat.

"We aren't children," she said, and walked away. As she did, she heard the black haired one mutter something that sounded remarkably like, "someone needs to get that stick out of his arse."

She walked past the entire group, to the very back where her own horse was standing nibbling happily at wet patch of grass. She cooed to it lovingly and took its reigns, leading it on at the tale of the group. She quietly complained to her faithful companion, petting his head and running her fingers through his black mane. He was a tall horse; taller than Gandalf's, and build for heavy lifting. The fur covering his hooves was matted with mud and leaves and grass and his mane was tangled. She would have to groom him later tonight when they… stopped.

"Can you believe him, Little Brother? Oh, the gull of him, that pretentious Dwarf," she whispered. "He thinks that just because he's old enough to be my great, great, great grandfather means he gets to tell me what to do! And he called me 'boy' still. Do you know how many times I asked him to stop? Thirteen. I told him to stop thirteen times, and accounting. Well, if I'm a boy, than he is an old and pessimistic bitter man is what he is. A bitter old man and if anybody has a stick up their arse, it's him. You're on my side, though, aren't you? You agree?"

Little Brother made a noise; one she chose to interpreted as agreement.

"I can always count on you to listen to me. You don't argue or call me a baby or treat me like an idiot. You're a good horse. Yes, you are, you are my little good horse!" Little Brother ducked his head, poking and probing her torso and back, sniffing. "I know, Little Brother. I'm sorry. You ate the last carrot last night. I don't have any more. You'll have to make due with grass."

She scratched his fur and brushed his mane with her fingers. Several times she was asked why she did not ride him, and each time she had the same answer: she liked the feel of the earth and soil beneath her feet. That, and he was already carrying her bags and weapons. She wouldn't burden him so. It would be unjust to load him up and then ride him, too.

She kept alternating between quietly cooing and complaining to Little Brother, even as the sun began lowering dangerously over the horizon.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

They broke camp come twilight ( _"It's too dangerous, we can be spotted"_ ) on a rocky ledge overlooking the lands that lay ahead. They lit a fire, against her advice ( _"We need to eat"_ ) and roasted some of the game the youngest brothers had shot earlier ( _"The wolves will smell if for a league" "Then we will cut them down"_ ) and settled down for the night. Bedrolls were rolled out, the camp organized so that everybody was close to everybody else. Gilli settled a fair way away from them, close enough to be within speaking distance, but far enough to reinforce the point that everyone collectively agreed upon on all the previous nights: she may be traveling with them, but she wasn't with them.

They scheduled watches and settled down to rest. Some slept; others did not. She was one of those people. Gilli lay quietly, with her back to the group and her face to the forest; Little Brother comfortably lying on his belly next to her. He was her source of warmth away from the campfire, shielding her from the elements. Saezae was in a tree; Gilli could see the hawk in the firelight. At one point some Dwarf or another suggested that they should shoot it, but that had only led to a loud confrontation. Now, they suggested it just to draw a good and humorous reaction. She eventually stopped reacting.

The fire burned at her back; at her side, Little Brother was a reassuring presence, a safety barricade, and about her the night was alive with nocturnal fauna. She could hear them all, and it was a welcome sound, comforting and right and alive and good, right up until the sleeping member of Thorin's Company began snoring. Then the wildlife silenced, just as Gilli had expected, and she groaned. Farewell, sleep, hope to see you again in four seasons, Gilli thought bitterly. She would never be able to sleep with these angry bears roaring and snarling down the back of her neck.

She tossed and turned for a while, unable to shut the noise out. She had reverted back to the measure of simply covering her ears with her hands and closing her eyes, but it did little by way of helping her drown out the noise. It was a turn of an hourglass later that she eventually gave up and sat up in her bedroll. She was long used to the rough terrain on which she slept. The rocks and roots and mud and water and earthly crawling things and insects preying on her she could deal with. Half a Dwarven Company partaking in an orchestra… not so much.

Gilli leaned her back on Little Brother and stared at the small fire, absently chewing on her fingernails. She wasn't the only one impaired by the noise and deprived of sleep, courtesy of the Dwarves. The small Hobbit eventually got up, sighing with resignation and abandons all thought of sleep, and walked over to where his pony was, cooing at the young horse. It was then that a sharp cry pierced the night. She all but jumped out of her skin; hand instinctively reaching for her sword where it was fastened to her saddle. Her hand hovered just short of the hilt before she relaxed. They were far away. A league and a half at least. It was a few more moments before she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

The Hobbit looked at the group with wide, terrified eyes as he asked what it was. The youngest brothers, sitting closest to the fire with their back up against the rocky wall that served to shelter the Company from the elements, jested about the Orcs, about how they kill. The two brothers, along with Thorin and that other one get first watch every night, so out of habit both pairs usually end up staying awake until the shift changed. The raven haired one told how they sneak up, kill soundlessly, and held a straight face until the Hobbit turned away, then broke into snickers.

"You're wrong," Gilli said quietly, just loud enough to be heard. "They don't much like it when you sleep. It's boring. There is no excitement in killing something that can't see them coming. No, they much prefer it when you're awake. When you scream a battle cry and charge at them, and cry out when they strike you. They like to see the blood seeping out of you, like to watch your face pale and grow cold with blood loss, like to see the fear and agony painted in red on your face. And when you are left standing in a field of corpses, and you have but two choices—to scream one last time and throw yourself on their blades or fall to your knees and beg for your life—that's when they have their ultimate fun. There is nothing quiet about Orcs," she said solemnly to no one in particular.

She looked up at the brothers, both frowning at her. She let out a humourless chuckle and added, "At least that's what I heard."

Their frown deepened.

"So you have never…?" The yellow haired one asked. She shook her head.

"I've never had the misfortune of meeting a large number too closely," she admitted, picking at the grass with her bare toes. The nights were warm yet.

"But you travel everyplace. How did you never have to fight an Orc?" The black one asked. She gave him a plain look.

"When I take traveling parties, they are mostly merchants, women and children who have never held a sword in their life. Do you early expect me to engage an Orc with a fat man, young woman and child of eight years at my back? No, in all my life I had fought a total of two Orcs. Separately. And Finn killed one of them before it could kill me so I don't know if my experience counts for much. My body count's pretty low with that one."

"So, no quick and quiet?

Gilli shook her head. "No. Lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of shouting and the like. You know, the usual brutal murder. Half cannibal psychopaths, the lot of them. Anyone who enjoys hurting others so much has got problems that I don't want to be a part of. What about you? How many Orcs have you put down?"

Before either brother could answer her Thorin cut in, scolding the trio something fierce about jesting with the topic, and that one line.

"You know nothing of the world," he'd said to them as he walked away to brood some more, overlooking the plains beneath them with all of his royal majesty, standing at the edge of the small plateau they all lay on, with nothing but the night around him. It was the first time that Gilli really stopped to think on his words without hot frustration to cloud her thoughts.

 _You know nothing of the world._

Those were the words of old eyes. Old, dark eyes to go with an old, dark heart. Not because of some malice he held within it but because of the anguish hidden beneath the anger, a tone she herself knew well. Those were the words of an ancient soldier who has fought in too many battles and seen more death than life. Those were the words of someone who knew the cost of surviving.

 _You know nothing of the world._

She knew he was the oldest of them, despite his more youthful features. His age surpassed that of the white-bearded a Dwarf, one of the three that came with him to meet her that very first night. He was a man of two hundred years, and enough blood on his hands to paint the skies red with his fingers. She just realized how ignorant she was of this fact, how dismissive.

 _You know nothing of the world._

A boy. He had called here a boy so much and so often that by now it was expected. Received unwell and a cause of anger but it was expected. A boy was the only thing he ever called her. Thinking on it now, maybe she really was. She had traveled all of Middle-Earth, yes, but how could she ever see a quarter of what he has seen? She was all but homeless, yes, as were her brother and son. But so were each and every member of Thorin's Company. The Dragon had taken Erebor a hundred and seventy years ago and most of the people on the cliff side had never laid eyes upon their motherland once.

At the very least the first eight years of her life were good. Certainly, she had faced the worst any man or woman could bare, a fate she'd not wish upon an enemy, but she was well-fed, educated in the literary arts, had an income that put a roof over her head, small though it was. It has been years since she had to wonder whether she would end up in the streets in the night, years since she truly starved. Yes, food had to be rationed and their houses were small, but in seven years she never once wondered whether she would eat at least once during any given day. She had a job, a family (whole and alive, even if it was not with her), and a beautiful son the safety of which she was sure of because she knew she could provide it.

Something told her that brothers or not, most of the people here had not seen each other in a very long time.

 _You know nothing of the world._

Maybe she really didn't.

The white-bearded Dwarf told a story. It was meant for the gold and black haired brothers and the Hobbit, but soon it was to no one in particular. It was a tale of a King without a kingdom, a story of a son without a father, a story of a people without a home even as they fought for one. Isn't this story; a young Dwarven Prince battled an enemy almost too great to overcome. The prince was a valiant warrior, fierce and proud and he fought in the name of his people, in the name of those who could not do it themselves. He was young, a boy struggling to be a man, a Prince struggling with the weight of his people's future.

The Prince fought well and honourably, giving his best and last to the fight and as he did, days turned into weeks. It was then that his Grandfather, the King, fell in battle. So, the story turned to one of vengeance and retribution and justice. The Prince fought the monster that killed his grandfather, hardly armed and shielded by only the meek branch of an Oak tree. But even as he defeated the foe, there was no pleasure in the victory as battle still raged on and the soldiers, now his to command, fell to their deaths.

"When the fighting was over, our dead outnumbered our living," the white-bearded Dwarf told them all, and the weight of those words, the personal recounting of the fight was like a stone sinking into the lake. Everybody was awake then, and each of them standing in respect for the greying King. Gilli didn't stand. She sat, toes digging into the earth and rock beneath her. He was a King—he was not her King. What good was their respect if they would likely die, reclaiming and then defending a motherland they had never known?

"And I thought to myself then: there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King." The words of a desperate, broken man looking for hope, looking for guidance when nobody knew what to do. The words of the lost, seeking refuge and safety with the only person they hoped could provide it. The words that thrust the weight of leadership upon a Prince not old enough yet to be King. The words of a proud and fierce people; the fire of which would never be snuffed out.

When Thorin turned, his eyes shone. Gilli doubted he enjoyed being reminded of that battle, of losing his kin to a monster thrice his size. He hardened them quickly, though, even as every person was just about ready to bow their heads to him.

It was the small Hobbit who asked of the aircraft that had taken the last King, but Gilli had a sneaking suspicion the answer would not be one she would like very much. Thorin said the filth crawled into its hole and died for good riddance of its wounds, but Gilli knew in her bones that his words were ones he had told himself every day and every night until he believed them.

The first rule of murder: no body, no dead.

Thorin walked away to be alone with his thoughts. They didn't speak of it anymore. Every Dwarf went back to their bedroll and settled down for the night, and Gilli knew they'd hardly be able to sleep now. She knew she couldn't. The guide got to her feet, brushing off her trousers and walked away from Little Brother. She paused briefly by the campfire to mutter a quiet, "Put it out," and walked away.

She found him on a ledge over looked the land. He sat on a stone near the edge, looking almost ready to topple over, but she knew the large boulder was secure. Quietly, she went over to him and sat on the ground, feet hanging over the edge, and tucked her hand under her thighs. Gilli bit her lip.

"I have pride; enough to hold my head high and keep speaking, but not too much, so as to not realize when I have wronged. Though… maybe a little too much to actually apologize for it, so don't take this for granted, Dwarf. You won't get another one." He was silent. She was silent. They stayed that way for what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes.

"I shouldn't have shouted at you like I have been. And I shouldn't have called you a bitter old man. I guess you have more reason than any of us to be angry and hateful at the world, after the poor hand it dealt you. I had no right, and I was too angry and too proud to see it. But I do now, and I realize that I shouldn't have done that. My words were unwelcome and unwarranted."

"No, boy, you should not have and they were not."

"You always call me that," she commented after another wordless moment. "Boy. That's the only thing you ever formally call me. I mean… pretentious idiot, incapable prat, and a few other choice words came up but it's always 'boy'. I guess I kind of am to you, though, aren't I? We all are. Just little kids, trying to get by in the world. I mean you've got what, two hundred years under your belt? What's my twenty five in there? Not that that warrants you to call me 'boy' every time you deem me worthy of the breath you waste, talking to me—just bare that in mind. I guess what I'm trying to say, what I want to say is that… well, that I'm sorry. For calling you a bitter old man and a fool and irresponsible and all the other unfair things I've sent your way, and also to give you my condolences about what happened."

Silence fell once more, and in the night the only light were the moon and stars.

"You know, my people believe that the stars are the rulers of old, watching over us as we slumber. Our own Kings and Queens are up there, leading and guiding us in our hours of despair. If it helps any, I'll be looking for your father and grandfather in the stars tonight."

"The stars are not the Kings and the Queens of old," he told her solemnly. "The Kings and Queens of old are long buried in the ground, as far from the light of the stars as one may get."

She gawked at him openly.

"You know, you have this unnatural gift of turning even kindhearted sentiment and sympathy regarding something awful and terrible and unspeakable into pessimism and insult to the culture of an entire people. You wilt flowers just by looking at them. Here I am, trying to apologize and be civil with you like a normal person and you not only throw it back in my face but insult my society and our beliefs. You know, I know that the Kings and Queens of old are under ground. I know that; despite what you may believe, I'm not a complete hopeless moron. But sometimes a little myth is good for the mind. You and your pessimism need that myth more than anyone else here. I'm sorry for spoiling your solitary brooding depression by trying to give a damn. Good night, Dwarf."

She got up and walked away angrily. Well, if he wanted to sit on his stupid rock and brood, he could do it until the grass was blue and the skies were green. So long as he kept up his part of the bargain, she would gladly not speak to him again.

"Oh and," Gilli said one more time, pivoting to look at his back, "I told you so." She knew it was a childish thing to say, but she did tell him they were be better off traveling through the night. If those Orcs and their wild mounts saw their campfire, they were in a lot of trouble.

She went back to her bedroll and settled into a sleepless night, her hours haunted by the ancient ghosts of a people fighting to live. Yes, she was fortunate indeed; in the very least her home stood proud and in the possession of her people.


	5. All For A Just Cause

Well, that's the fifth chapter! Whoa, two chapters in twelve hours, not bad. Well, this one wasn't beta read because I've already had my beta read over a chapter today and I didn't want to overload her with more, so I read it over by my own, thrice over, so please excuse any errors I may have missed. I tried very hard to pick up all of them, and I hope I got all of them, though. Right now I'm dead on my feet so I'll go back later and pick up my slack when I can count how many fingers I'm holding up in front of my face.

Anyways, hope you folks liked it!

PS.: more favs and follows and reviews! Whoa, you guys are so awesome, I can't even tell you how awesome you are! Thank you all so much!

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _5 / All For A Just Cause_

* * *

Morning came, and then night. Hours turned into days and days into another week. By then she knew all their names, though not the faces that went with them. She often sat at night, spending her watch shift going through names and faces, trying to put each to their respective counterpart. Though, by this point she knew them better by trade, not that she could call them "Medic" and "Toymaker". Gilli started with the youngest three: Kíli, Fíli and Ori, in that order. Kíli was the raven haired Dwarf who threw rocks and made her put her mask down, and the only archer in the Company. Fíli was his older brother, the Dwarf who looked like a lion in face and in mane. Ori was the youngest of the Ri siblings, shy, and had light hair. He liked to write and sketch a lot. Most nights he'd sit by the fire and scribble away in a notebook.

She knew the a Hobbit was Bilbo, and he reminded her much of the majority of her clients: sweet and timid but like the rest of the folk she's taken, virtually useless in the harsh world beyond the comforts of home. The Dwarf with the funny hat that stuck out to the sides at the ears was Bofur, even though she always mispronounced his name and it came out more like "Boapher". The white-bearded one was Balin, the second eldest as well as most ancient in face, and the one with the bald head and tattoos on his scalp was his younger brother, Dwalin. She didn't remember who the Dwarf with an ax imbedded in his skull (how was he even alive?) was but knew he didn't speak Westron, even as he understood every word (an impairment surly caused by the _ax blade in his skull_. Honestly, how was he even alive?!).

Those were the only ones she knew to put together, aside from the one she refused to even think about most of the time. He was of concern to her only when they needed to talk about directions and even then she didn't say a word to him. She made muffled noises and pointed and groaned when he wouldn't listen and complained to Little Brother about him but in the week it has been since Balin told the tale about the Moria battle, she hadn't spoken a single word to him directly.

She knew she was being childish every time she sent a glare his way—making sure he didn't see it when she did (she didn't need him to think even less of her for her antics)—but it had stung her. In so few words he had insulted and belittled the hope of her entire people. That belief was what people turned to in times of despair and loneliness. That belief made them feel like they were not alone. She herself had taken comfort in speaking to the stars, asking for guidance or simply venting her anger and frustration. In the crude words fit for his mother tongue had had said she and her people were naïve idiots, children who didn't know anything at all.

Gilli knew he hadn't meant to insult her culture, only to reprimand her for her words and actions towards him, something she wasn't ready to admit she deserved.

Still, she had never wanted to slap him until that night on the cliff. Oh, she had wanted to inflict bodily harm on that Dwarf ever since his back faced her in the tavern, but never quite like that. Afterwards, the impulse was with her for days. Now half a fortnight later she had calmed down enough to look at him straight without wanting to throttle him. He was hurt, she reasoned. Hurt and upset and hateful and grieving. People with any one of those emotions, let along each of them several times over, tended to say hurtful things. But even as she reminded herself that he had seen enough to last him a hundred lifetimes, it still was no excuse to his words. Not in her mind, at any rate.

So they stayed out of one another's way and everybody as happy.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

Gilli was used to stepping away—far, far away—to make her water. She was used to excusing herself in the night to bathe in a lake or stream and she was used to coming up with a reason to be gone for an hour at a time if she needed to wash her more feminine clothing such as her breast bringers and smallcloths. She was well practiced in these things, but mostly she had snuck away to swim in the night when all others were asleep. That way she could avoid this situation.

"You're sopping wet."

"Yes, indeed I am, Master Bwoff—Baoph—Bo… don't laughter, I'm going to get it!" she said defensively as she sat down a little ways away form the campfire ring, where she had rolled out her sleep sack. Even so, she could hardly keep the embarrassed laughter from her voice. They were in the thick of a forest and they only lit a campfire for a brief two hours to cook the meat and then they put it out. The fire no longer being an option at night, everybody huddled close together and when dinner was served they sat as close as possible, soaking up the welcomed heat of each other.

Gilli was well and truly drenched, though, and no fire heat would help her. Her hair was soaked and heavy under her hat and, tucked away, wouldn't be dry for more than a day, and her clothes stuck to her bothersomely. Dwarves stared with no little amount of confusion. Gilli felt more than a little uncomfortable.

"Then you best hurry up on that," he remarked with no small amount of amusement. When at first he had taking offence to that she called him a name that was not his, now he found her struggled to get her tongue around it humorous. "Where were you? We looked for you," he said.

"I said I was leaving to bathe. It has been awful long since I cleaned myself," she explained with a shrug.

"You were gone for one half hour," he told her as he helped the cook divide dinner among fifteen plates, handing them off one by one.

"I had to make a brief detour," she said calmly.

"No one goes anywhere by their lonesome," Fíli supplied slyly as he grabbed two plates and handed them down to the next Dwarf like a child's game of pass-it-on. She gave him a bored look.

"I was within shouting distance," she assured. "Besides, with a Company of thirteen loud and crud Dwarves moments of privacy are few and far between. Personally, I don't feel very comfortable dunking in a lake alone with more than a dozen other naked men," she lied, though she knew her words inspired little trust. It really did sound suspicious, even to her own ears.

"Don't worry, Master Gilli. I doubt you have something that the rest of us don't," the lion-like Dwarf said with a good-natural wink, and several of them burst out laughing. Gilli rolled her eyes. Oh, if he knew the irony of that statement… though, he best never find out. Best none of them ever do. Honourable as they claimed to be, they were fifteen men doomed to spent more than a half year without a woman. Somehow she doubted that by the end of the journey they would be able to uphold that so called honour. Besides, this way they at least pretended to hear her when she spoke. She was sure that would be very different were she a woman. So instead she played along.

"Oh? Because I feel I must warn you: I may be short in stature but the lack of height deprives me of nothing. Can you claim the same of your own attributes?" She challenged with a gleeful smirk as his face fell. He mauled over what she said for a second, then his eyes widened comically. Beneath that was a ghost of triumph. Triumph over what, she was unsure, but she would have to ask him later.

"I will have you know, just because I am a Dwarf doesn't mean I have a Dwarf-sized—"

"I really don't want to know," she told him quickly, but couldn't keep the laugh from her voice. "Keep your jewels to yourself; I will take you on your word."

"He got you there, lad," an older Dwarf laughed, clapping his hand on Fíli's back, and the blonde laughed good naturally.

"Get yer dinner, laddie," Baf… Boph… the one with the funny hat told her, holding a plate above his head. She waved her hand at him and held up a small satchel.

"I'm all good, thank you, Master Boapher—don't laugh; I'll get it, I promise, I'm sorry! You can give my share to someone else." To say the large cook looked like she had spit in his face was an understatement and she hurried to amend her words, the feeling of guilt seeping in fast and sharp. "Oh, no! No, please: I mean no offence! Your food is brilliant, I swear. Much better than what I normally get. Honest. It is just, I see how you always have to eat in such small rations. Surely it isn't enough to be sufficient for everyone, warriors that you are. And I am perfectly capable of eating clams and cockles. They are generally better cooked but I'm used to them. I just thought… I just thought it would be better, if I provided for myself. They way everybody can have just a little more. It isn't as though I contribute to the hunting or anything, and you lot don't really eat food that grows from the ground. You need that wild turkey a lot more than I do."

Silence. Complete, dead silence. The entire worlds seemed to become deaf and mute. For a moment it seemed even the wildlife stilled. Everybody looked at her for a very long moment and eventually she couldn't help it: for the first time since joining them she shifted uncomfortably and turned her gaze away, feeling embarrassed (which led to even more suffocating shame. Gilli! Turned away! Unspeakable; if word got out, surly she would lose her iron reputation).

So instead of dwelling on it she opened the small bag and started slurping oysters from their shells. Qickly, the Company resumed to eating, but at several points during dinner she felt someone's hot gaze on her. She pretended she didn't.

What did she say?

~{XXX|o0o|XXX}~

Twilight gave away to night and the only light illuminating the small camp was from the heavens. The crescent moon and the stars were just enough light to make out silhouettes. Everybody settle down in a tight group, the ponies tied to the trees a little way away and Gilli lay on her sleeping sack quietly, nibbling on a blade of grass with an absent mind. Little Brother lay behind her and she passed her back comfortably into his side, the natural warmth of his massive form like an embrace. It reminded her a little of when she traveled with Finn and Bae. They lay just like this, in a tight ball with her little boy tucked securely between herself and me'ne, Little Brother at her back one night and at Finn's the next. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend Finn went with Bae to make water and would come back any minute to settle into comfortable sleep.

"Oi! Master Waters!" She frowned and sat up to face the Company where they all sat on their rolls. "Catch!" She only had a moment to react, reaching up to grab the small round shape flying at her in the dark. It was an apple. She looked to where it came from, recognizing the voice and the dark outline of a body. Kíli; the younger brother of the Dwarf she joked at earlier.

"Why did you give this to me?" she asked.

"Well, you hadn't really had a proper dinner. Those clams looked hardly enough to feed a small child—though you really aren't much bigger so I suppose there is little difference. Fee and I, we thought if you shared your supper, we might share something of ours with you."

Only, the apples were for the ponies, so it wasn't theirs, but it was the thought that counted so she let it slid.

"Oh, Master Dwarf, I really couldn't. You need it more than I and I would never take food from someone who has to break their fast with stale bread and cold leftovers, half asleep in a saddle. You're already not as well fed as you should be. And, being a soldier, you need every bit of strength. I need not to be fed, I have lived with a single meal a day for much of my life. I can get by." She tossed the apple back in his direction. He caught it effortlessly. "I than you for your consideration, though."

"What do you mean, with one meal a day?" He asked curiously, then, "Ow! Fee! What was that for?"

"Kíli, you can't ask that: it's rude!"

Gilli was confused. She cocked her head to the side.

"Is something wrong? Had I said something wrong?"

"You work, though. You have a good job and you did charge Thorin a hundred Gold pieces for a trip to Dale. How can you only afford one meal a day?" Again, the youngest Dwarf was smacked. "Stop hitting me!" By the sound of it, he retaliated.

Gilli couldn't help but laugh.

"It's quite alright, Master Dwarf. I don't mind," she told them before one of them could hit and be hit by his brother again. "Yes, I have a job, but I don't typically travel this far or for this long. It's rare that I would take such a large party across such distance and with such potential danger. This is particularly expensive, I must admit. I have only had one job in all my life for which I had charged as much as I did him. Oftentimes it's much less than twenty Gold pieces. On top of that, my sword and bow and supplies come very expensive. I have gotten the cheapest I could find but still we had to save too much before I had enough money. My clothes and equipment are very expensive; compromises have to be made. One top of _that_ , do you think Little Brother was gifted to me?"

She remembers the comical faces of the Dwarves within earshot when she called "Little Brother!" She had to explain that no, she did not, in fact, allow a small child to sneak with them and it was, in fact, her trusted mount and not a tiny Man.

"Oh, I see," Kíli said. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry, Master Gilli."

"You were not prying. Besides, I have a job. I can feed myself well enough. One meal a day or no, it has been a long times since I had gone an entire day starving, which is far more than I can say for most of the lowborn folk that I know. I'm well off. Much better than most."

She caught the apple only a mere palm's width from her face this time.

"We had a supper a little bigger tonight. The least we can do in return is share an apple." Gilli was about to protest, to toss it back but the blonde Dwarf shushed her. "Eat the blasted apple or give it to your horse, but keep it," he told her.

"Alright, _mother_ ," she said, and ate the apple quietly. She was half done when she asked, "Speaking of which, before I forget: prey tell why exactly did you decide to stone me the other day?"

In the darkness, she could just barely make out the brothers look at one another and shrug. "We thought maybe if you smiled, that stick up your arse would magically fall out and you would stop being so stuck up and angry all the time," Kíli answered.

" _Me_ stuck up? I'm in the acquaintances of thirteen Dwarves! There isn't such a thing as stuck up, where you lot are concerned."

"True, but you clearly know the basic theory of how to laugh, right?" Gilli rolled her eyes but played along for the sake of it and nodded. "We just thought, if we taught it to you in practice, you would stop acting like someone pissed in your ale," the brunette explained naturally.

"And throwing rocks at my arse was the only thing you could think of?"

"Immediately? Yes. We'd have used mud, but it's not rained in days so we had to resort to drastic measures," the blonde told her and she gave a hearty laugh; Finn had done that more than once when she was little. Mud fights had always seemed to lift her spirit, when she could roll in the dirt and get messy and throw things and _it was alowed_. She cleared her throat at once and refocusing, serious again. She was losing her grip on careful distance. She couldn't let that happen.

Well, maybe only a little: if they succeeded, she would have something to hit Master Oakenshield with.

"What about you lot?"

"What about us?" the one with the funny hat asked, half-joining the conversation. Probably to keep a closed eye on her.

"How've you lot been making money? I mean, ponies don't come cheep, and the weapons you carry had to be at least a hundred a Gold pieces per sword and ax and at least forty on average for the daggers and other smaller weapons. How could you ever afford all of that? If I had come by all of that, I would sell it and by myself a large house and servants and purchase farmland and livestock and never hunger again in all my life! And my servants would be better off than most, too. Oh, no offence!"

"These weapons are Dwarvish, laddie. You won't find another like them in all of Middle-Earth," the Dwarf said.

"Wait, so… you made them?"

"Aye, most of us forged our own weapons. Why, is it a problem?"

"Really?" Now Gilli was intrigued. "But why do you say it so plainly? That's amazing! Oh, if I could forge swords and axes and knives like yours I would be rich as a Queen! I have seen you cut things with those; I have only ever encountered a blade sharper than that once in my entire life! And it was a special Elvish obsidian alloy so no wonder there—except maybe where did they ever get obsidian, but that's beside the point. How are you not wealthy beyond measure, living a life of luxury?"

"Because we are greedy, stupid barbarians why live for blood and gold," someone answered, and this voice she knew to put a name to. He was the bald one, the one with tattoos on his head and several ancient and new scars crisscrossing his face. Dwalin.

Gilli frowned. She knew Dwarves as a whole weren't the most welcome folk in society but… "That's what Men call you? Mindless savages?"

"What? Not bad enough for you?"

What he insinuated strum her like a slap but she more or less understood that to him she was just another selfish Man.

Still, feeling almost insulted that he would think that of her (not without reason, but that was beside the point), she said, "My short stature had earned me quite a few stares and crude gestures and jokes. Some had even mistaken me for a Dwarf child, called me a filthy greedy rat (a mistake they payed for with their teeth) so excuse me if I don't heed rumours and gossip. I like facts, not opinions, when in regards to something also important as half the history of Middle-Earth," she spat. "And no, I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of mocking a homeless man who lost his family and fortune in a fire."

"Then that is your answer," was all he said, and finally she understood what he meant (aside from a snide remark made out of spite for Men).

"Oh," was all she had to say to him. She didn't say anything else.

The next day she decided it was time she began making real contributions to the group beyond the standard list of duties and chores. She started ( _"The Company is only as fast as its slowest member"_ ) with the Hobbit.


	6. Sinking Man

And so concludes the chapter six! Sorry for the delay, folks. I sent my beta the wrong chapter for editing, so that is that. My bad, oops. Anyhow, thank you all for all the reviews and follows and favs you guys give me, it's really awesome that you like it as much as you do. I know it's kind of slow and uneventful of now, but that will change soon enough :))

Again, thank all of my readers and thank you my wonderful beta, and hope you enjoyed this chapter!

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _6 / Sinking Man_

* * *

"Like this?"

"No. No, don't do that. You look foolish. Trust me, you won't fall off. Just… loosen your hands."

"She will throw me off."

"She will not. I promise. Just… Here, loosen your hands. Like this. Keep them in or about your lap. If you grip the reins too tight the horse will sense it."

"I do believe I am beginning to understand why you prefer walking beside us," the small Hobbit told her, the tone of resignation all too clear in his voice. Gilli had spent all morning and far into the afternoon walking alongside his pony; he usually ended up at the very back of the group by the end of the day, the other riders having given up toddling along behind him and passing with a groan or an exaggerated call to "Move it faster, lad; we don't have all day".

"You oughtn't to be afraid of her, Master Hobbit. Horses have keen senses: if you fear her she will fear you. They are also very responsive: all it takes is a little lean, a small shift, if you know how to do it right. Now, loosen your grip on the reins and lower your hands. That's it. She won't throw you off."

Hesitantly, he did as asked. Again. For the umpteenth time—only to go back to his stiff, petrified position with his hands up in front of his face and wide, fearful eyes as his horse made a noise and turned ever so slightly, swaying as it walked. Gilli cooed at it gently.

"Hush now, little girl, shh. There you go, don't go about frightening Hobbits; now, how about that? There you go." She petted the horse lovingly on the nose, whispering calming words, and the pony settled again. Then she turned to the Hobbit and said, "You can't do that. She only reacts as she does because of your lack of faith. She feels you don't trust her and she is trying to encourage you otherwise. Let her show you there is nothing to be afraid of."

"There is the height," he countered, "and the pain that would come from the fall."

"Which is why you won't fall, Master Hobbit. The link between horse and rider is one of mind. You mustn't tell her what to do with ropes and metal and sticks. She will listen to you, to your body language, if you let her have her mind. They don't like to be commanded, but they will gladly work with you of you let them. Think about what you want Myrtle to do. In your mind," she said, tapping her temple gently as she looked up at him. "Come on, work with me here. Take a deep breath. Good. Now, lower your hands and let's try this again."

And they did try again. They tried for another two and a half hours and the only reason they stopped was because she was called to the front to discuss some traveling matters that she settled as quickly as she could and hurried away in a most childish manner, unwilling to spent more time with Master Oakenshield than absolutely necessary. Eventually, she tried a different tactic.

"Give me your hands," she asked, swinging her pack over her shoulder. In one of its numerous front pockets were strips of cloth as wide as the length of her thumb and long enough to wrap around her hand enough times to isolate her palms from things like the hilt of her none-too-light sword and the reins of Little Brother.

"What… what is that? What are you doing?" He asked, even as he carefully extended one of his hands to her, tightening his other hand on the reins. She took it and began wrapping his knuckles and palm, occasionally slipping the strip of cotton between two fingers until she had fashioned a fingerless glove. She walked around his pony and did the same with his other hand.

"I do believe you would find riding much easier if your palms weren't riddled with swells and blisters and holes," she said. After the days of riding the poor Hobbit's hands were a red and pink mess of burst blisters that he scratched absently in sleep until they bled. This made holding anything, much less the very rope that had cut him to begin with, very difficult. Several times he had dropped things because it stung his hands something mighty; a pain she could relate to very well.

"Alright, now that we've covered holding the reins more lightly, let's try the next step. I want you to relax. You are far too tense and stiff. Your Myrtle doesn't muck like that. You look like you've got a broom in place of your spine, something I'm sure is painful on your back. You'll injure yourself at this rate. Well, more than you already have. And sleeping on the ground doesn't help much. Sit like this…"

It was another hour and a half before she took a break. He was getting some of the things she told him, but mostly, he needed to overcome his crushing fear of falling and breaking something. She had handed out several suggestions in regards to that, one of them including "Be her friend. Speak to her, show her that you care. Feeding her apples every now and again is a good start, but you don't talk to her much. Give her the attention and she will return the favour."

It was just another item added to her list of appointed tasks.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

They settled for supper at twilight. She helped the big round one with the ax—very descriptive, Gilli—gather firewood. His name was Galion or Galphion or something to that like. They didn't speak as they scouted the forest around the camp, always safely within shouting range, until they had enough dry-wood, and then he helped get the fire started as she helped skin the birds and squirrels Kíli had shot down.

The Hobbit took a seat on the ground next to her, squirming at the sight of animal guts, but he had finally stopped turning green at the face, so that was good progress. He was adjusting faster than the better half of her traveling parties, which was a relief. Well, maybe not as much as he could have, but in the very least he had the good graces to keep all his comments to himself and not complain; which was more than she could say for most of the folk she had walked the lands with.

"I wanted to thank you for trying to teach me to ride today," he said. "I know it couldn't have been easy. I'm not very good with being so high off the ground." She smiled at him as she rid her second bird of feathers. They lay on the ground at her feet, sticking to the blood.

"It's quite alright. Progress is slow, but you're doing better than many of the people I've instructed before. At least you have the patience of an adult, not a ten year old boy."

"Ten year old boy?"

"I'm sworn to confidentiality, Master Hobbit, but believe me when I say; you are one of the easier people I've had to teach to ride well. At the very least you make an effort. You need to stop being so afraid and let yourself be calm, though; take Little Brother back there for example. He is one of the most powerful horse breeds in all of Middle-Earth. He is a gentle heart and soul that would never hurt me and we love one another greatly.

But should he see that I am in danger he will be quick to become a beast of brutal murder. At one point, I and my traveling party were ambushed by a small band of thieves. Both I and the Men I came with were able to hold our own, but perhaps the fight would have ended very different if Little Brother wasn't there," she revealed, distantly recalling the sound of a crushed ribcage. The Man hadn't known what hit him, even as Little Brother crushed his chest with his hooves.

"He is both kind and fierce, and faithful to those he deems worthy to the very last, and I am honoured to have him as my mount. That, Master Hobbit, is the kind of attitude you need to acquire before you can truly ride a horse properly. You must understand one another as two functioning pieces of the same mechanism. Don't misunderstand; she is not a part of you and you are not a part of her, but you work together in a symbiotic relationship, you read one another like a map or a book. That trust is vital. Without it, you will never ride well. Here, do me a favour: hold this tight for a minute," Gilli asked as she handed the plucked bird to Kíli for skinning and picked up a squirrel.

She gave the small critter to the Hobbit and told him to hold it hight above his head, then she made a careful incision down the length of its belly, enough to break skin but not enough so as so bleed to dry. She did the same around the base of its back where it met its hind legs, then grabbed the slit corners and tugged sharply, with all of her strength. The skin came off cleanly, leaving all internal organs inside.

The Hobbit paled but said nothing about it aside from a quiet, "You are very good at this."

"Yes, well… I've had many years to practice. Mind you, not as much as these two back here," she said, jerking her head to motion at the young brothers, engaged in some squabble or another regarding who can pluck their bird first. "But, it's been enough to keep me and mine alive."

"Where did you learn this?" he asked curiously.

"From myself, mostly. I've spied on a few hunters in my time; taken tips and such. But mostly I've had to teach myself a great many things. I think I've gotten fairly decent at it, too." Not too bad for a girl, she almost added.

"What about Finn, the Man you mentioned before?"

"Finn… Finn is not much of a hunter. Or a gatherer. Or a butcher. He's more oriented about the finer arts, such as… well, such as art. He was the one who drew the moonstone. Have you seen the detail? Looking at the parchment, I could swear I can pick the rock right off the page! He makes his earnings in bakeries and with jewelers and occasionally selling illustrated arts. He's a gentle man with a soft heart unfit for the gruesome work of killing, even if it is to feed himself. He can catch a fish, but he can never crush it's scull or scale it for supper," she said, her eyes drifting sideways to gaze at nothing in particular with no small amount of soft fondness in them.

"Many people think him younger because of this; more naïve and defenseless. It's a mistake, of course, but most times he has to let them think it. Mind you, I don't; and I make sure they know it, too. It's odd, you know? He's supposed to be the one taking care of me, but so often it's quite the other way around," Gilli explained, a loving smile tugging at her lips, a far off memory of one of the few people dearest to her.

"Oh," one of the brothers said behind her. "So, how long have you and this Finn fellow been together?" Gilli paused, shook her head in confusion and turned to frown at the brothers.

"What?"

"How long have you been together? Are you married?"

Gilli blinked twice, and then burst out laughing. They thought that… gods, he… did she really sound… of gods!

"What—no! Oh gods, no! Gracious, do I really sound like… no, no! No, you misunderstand: Finn isn't my lover, he is my brother! My older brother, five years senior to myself. He's been looking after us—well, he's been trying to at any rate, but it's the thought that counts where he is concerned."

The brothers had the good grace to look a little embarrassed; eyes wide.

"Oh, we're sorry, Master Gilli!"

"We meant no offence! It's only that—"

"—You've spoken of him so fondly that we were under the impression—"

"—That he was your lover."

Gilli couldn't stop cackling like a madman. Not at the brothers but at the absurd implication that she could have a long term partner, complete with compromises and commitment and _love_ … It was a strange and frightening thought. A Nymph? Love? It was just too good that they would think that! Didn't they know—

That's right. They didn't. They had no idea. How could they, if their people were so oriented around love when it came to significant others? The idea that someone could be as without love as the Nymph kind was just as beyond them as the idea that they could tie their lives to a single person and live for centuries with just that single one, was for her. It was so… imprisoning and confining and wrong to have to cut half of your life out just to make room for another person to take it up like that. Why would anybody want to subject themselves to that?

"I have had many lovers, Masters Fíli and Kíli. Finn was never one of them, I assure you," she said, still laughing out loud. "I can't believe that… did I really make you believe he was a lover? Is that the kind of image I make of him?" she asked, struggling to sober and focus.

"Well, you do smile a lot when you mention him, and you spent so much time each night writing and grinning widely and with so much affection. We all thought you were writing letter to a love you left back in that village. Though, a good thing you hadn't sent anything yet. Thorin wouldn't like it much—nobody would—if you sent out letters of our journey to strangers. I'm afraid you will not be allowed to send any of them," the blonde Dwarf informed her.

"This is why I intend on allowing some of you to read each of them to make sure I give nothing of value away. I only need to let him and Bae know I am alive as of yet. You see, I've never been away for quite so long. They are used to my disappearing for weeks—months, even—but the longest we were ever apart is three moons. This journey will take me more than a year to get back from and I swore I would write every fortnight. Thus far it is time for the first shipment of letters home. It's quite alright if you read them, Masters Fíli and Kíli. I've not written anything incriminating or of secrecy in them. Only that the nights are warm as of yet and I am just about ready to strangle the leader of your Company on a good day," she said naturally, shrugging it off.

She wasn't much fond of allowing strangers to read her letters home but she knew they would never let her send them if they didn't check them thrice for hidden messages. She would grit her teeth and bear through it if that was what it took to write to her brother and son.

The brothers nodded in understanding as they skinned their game along with her.

"Thorin isn't like that on purpose, you know," Fíli told her. "Well, he is but he has a good reason."

"Oh, I can imagine," Gili said. "… Actually, I can't, but I can get the general idea. I mean, being King and all, it can't be easy," she admitted. "All the same, he is about five words away from making me throw myself from the tallest tree," she stressed.

"Little wonder there, Master Gilli; he is too used to taking care of himself and everybody else by his lonesome. With you here, it is odd. For all of us. You are an experienced guide and you know what you speak of, but he is out King and caretaker. Even so much as sharing that title can't be easy. He may never learn to, at this point. He looks after us, even if he has to be so distant and detached to do it," Kíli explained.

That was when it drew on her, why she was feeling queasy all day. When she had woken up, Gilli did so with a heavy feeling twisting nauseatingly in her stomach. At first she thought it must have been the shellfish, it having been so long since she had actually eaten them and her system having grown unused to even her natural diet. When water and food had not helped settle her stomach and the twisting feeling spread to her gut and made her feel even more ill, she feared she had caught some sort of decease. Now, though, Gilli identified it by name: guilt.

It was then that she recognized the final days of her anger cycle, as they almost always ended with sickening guilt so powerful that it made her want to puke. Looking in the direction of Master Oakenshield, she thought she just might. Once the anger she felt this fortnight subsided, and the crushing shame that set in for her actions and words, all she wanted to do was crawl in a hole and die.

Oh, how could she have let herself say those things to him? How could she have let herself act as she had? If her mother was here, she would surely beat her in the head in hope of putting some common sense and respect into it. In fact, Gilli might just hit herself in the head anyway. She had a powerful urge to hit her head on a tree. Or a rock. Or Thorin's fist. Yes, that last one sounded particularly good. The tree and the rock she did nothing to, so as to abuse them with her face. Thorin's fist was long overdue for a close introduction with her teeth, though, and frankly she had half a mind to ask him.

He started it. He started it! Oh, gods: how could she have thought that? How could she have let herself be so childish and immature? Oh, arguing was one thing. If she had the sense to just argue with him maybe she would feel better, but no: she did it in front of everyone.

She was going to be sick. Yes, now she was definitely going to be sick. Right here on this road, all over her boots and the dead animal in her hands.

Oh, she really was a small boy, a child! And a child who wasn't beat enough, growing up, at that. He ought to have hit her; maybe then she would bloody well shut up and respect her elders! Oh, she was angry at him still for his words to her before, and she was angry for his attitude toward her in the tavern, but had she really responded as she did? This was how she reacted?

She could feel her face grow hot and crimson. She needed to apologize. She had to apologize for everything she said and did and she had to do it now—

—No, she couldn't apologize. Her words would mean nothing to him. No, she had to show him she was sorry. She had to prove to him that she understood that she was wrong and why she was wrong. Actions were the only kind of promise and apology he would understand.

"That's too bad for him," she said firmly. "I'm here and he best get used to seeing me because I am not going anywhere until the first days of winter. And if he isn't used to people giving a damn, he will have to grit his teeth and deal with it. His snippiness won't keep me from doing my job. And if that job is taking care of this Company and making sure everything goes by swimmingly, than so help me: I will see it done. Last I checked; he is part of the Company, so he will just have to get used to people caring about his well-being."

"You have to understand, Master Gilli," Fíli told her, trying to be patient with her in all of her 'stranger' attitude. She knew she had no idea for the true dynamic of these folk. "He carries the weight of an entire people on his back. It's very draining, having a stranger among us. We all have to hold our tongues."

Gili nodded her understanding, accepting the truth for what it was: another simple fact of life. Besides, she knew all about holding her tongue. She was no stranger to how hard it could get.

"Then he will have to understand that he is not the only one responsible for the safety of all of you. If he can't take it that someone else is protecting you than that is his loss, because I _will_ protect you. All of you. And if you don't believe me now, then you will soon enough; that I promise you."

"If your older brother is not much of a hunter, how did you learn to shoot a bow?" The Hobbit asked her curiously, (thankfully changing the subject before she can get angry just thinking about the Dwarf King and his inability to let others care) even as she handed him the skinned squirrel and asked that he gut it. He had watched them do it often enough to know the procedure in theory. He squirmed and gagged but took up a knife and got to (messy) work.

Gilli was glad for the change of conversation and answered, "Like I said, many things I have taught myself, though I can't say I excel in marksmanship," she admired. "Actually, I really can't shoot a bow at all. Well, I can, if my intention is stabbing myself in the foot."

"If you can't use it than why do you carry it?" he asked curiously, then reddened at what he said. "Oh, I'm sorry, Master Gilli: I meant not to pry or insult. I only am curious is all as to why you arm yourself with a weapon you cannot use well. Surely it is a great burden," he explained. She couldn't help but smile at that.

"Well, let me tell you a little secret about common society of Men, Master Hobbit: people are disgusting, selfish, hateful creatures with little regard for the lives and wellbeing of others," she spat angrily. He winced and shrunk away from her with guilt written plainly on his face, even though her anger was directed at one very different than he. "When you carry a weapon, people think twice before cornering you in an alley. When I carry my sword, knives and moonbow people oft' think better than to f—" she cut herself off before she could say too much to a group of utter strangers. "—think better than to mess with me. It is safer to travel well-armed; even when you cannot use much of what you carry well."

"That… makes a lot of sense," the small Hobbit said as he worked to rid the forest critter at his feet of its entrails. He kept the liver, heart, and intestines as he had seen others do so many times. She smiled to herself. He was a quick learner. Mayhap once she finished teaching him to ride she might reach him to defend himself a little, so he wouldn't be of hindrance in a fight.

"Would you like to?"

"Pray pardon, Master Kíli?" She asked, cocking her head to the side in confusion as she turned back to him.

"To use your moonbow, I mean. Would you like to learn to shoot?" Gilli's brows came up in surprise. He couldn't honestly be insinuating what she thought he was.

"I'm afraid I've tried to teach myself already. I was utterly hopeless and Finn has a scar to prove it." The Dwarves cringed but snickered all the same. The Hobbit shot a wary glance at Little Brother and the bow strapped to his saddle.

"That, Master Gilli, is because you had a rubbish teacher," the back-haired archer told her with amusement all too clear in his voice.

"Oh, I will have you know, Master Kíli, that my archery teacher was the very same one who taught me the art of swordplay: myself. And I am a rather fine swordsman, if I may say so myself," she remarked. "It is only that archery is far beyond me, is all. It has nothing to do with teaching," she defended.

"Not as far as any of us can tell. You may as well carry your sword as an accessory," Fíli said to her. "Not when you let your skills sit and stiffen. You need to spar with the rest of us at night. Otherwise whatever skill you have will rust like an old untended sword. It has been a fortnight and you have not picked up your sword once. If that is any indication, I doubt you would be able to slay a rabbit at this rate."

"Oh? Very well: I would gladly show you, Master Fíli, my swordplay," she said, a little insulted, but she knew he had a point. It really had been too long since she had fought. He was right, of course: she must have gotten worse from weeks of letting her sword sit untouched. "Even so, I have been told by many that I am a fine swordsman with much skill in the fighting art. Though, frankly I am a far better rider than anything else," she admitted.

"I had little doubt of that, with how you taught Bilbo today. Did you teach yourself that, too?"

"Yes and no," she answered. "I met a Man. Though, he wasn't really a Man. Long story short, he is very good with animals; I got many tips from him. But overall, it was a learning curve based on practice and repetition."

"Is there anything that you did not teach yourself?" the Hobbit asked curiously. "You must have been taught something by your brother. Surely you have picked up skills from him?"

"Oh, I have; poor though they may be. As I am away from home so often the cooking of food has befallen upon him, as did tending the house in my absence. He has become a wonderful cook. He can make anything with just about nothing! He knows all the herbs and spices by name, sight, and smell; he can save anything and everything ruined, even if it is charred beyond any visible salvaging; it is why he makes much of his money in bakeries. He bakes and frosts the best of cakes and pies. Other times he helps innkeepers in the kitchens. He was the one who taught me to roast a squirrel of all things in six different ways," she said proudly. They looked amazed at this.

"Six ways? Are you sure? There is no good way to roast a squirrel; they are all equally terrible," Kíli said, making a face.

"There is, and Finn was the one who uncovered six of those ways to me. When we were on the road, he was the one who truly kept us alive. I could bring the food in, but we would have died if it wasn't for him and his gifts. In so many ways I am alive today because of him."

There was a brief silence as the three about her mauled it over; then the Hobbit said, "He sounds like a good fellow."

"The best," Gilli's agreed wholeheartedly.

"So, would you like to learn? Surely Thorin would not be very happy for us teaching you to fight, but the Company can use two long-range fighters. I can do enough work for two, mind. But it would be a lot more profitable if two could shoot."

Gilli beamed at him with wide eyes alight with glee and mirth.

"Really? You would?" Then she realized how stupid she must have looked and sounded, and clearer her throat, dropping a plain mask over her face, once more distant and detached. "It is a sound opinion. You are right: it would profit the Company, yes. I suppose it would be good."

The archer leveled her with an angered look as he asked, "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" She asked him.

"That," his brother said. "Every time you start to show the world that you in fact have teeth, you revert back to being an annoying, irritating Man with a stick up his arse."

"I know not what you speak of," she said plainly, looking down at the bird she was working on. "This is my natural state, Masters Fíli and Kíli, and if it does not please you than you are free to not associate with me. My job is to keep you from going astray, it is not to make friends and play make-believe like children. We are not children. Excuse me; I believe I have finished my batch," she said, picking up her skinned animals and walking away to hand them over to the cook.

She couldn't get distracted by any of them. Getting destructed meant getting attached and getting attached meant less and less chances for her to recover the Queen of the Heavens and return it to where it rightfully belonged. Without the moonstone, her people would surely perish.


	7. To Each His Own Battleground

Chapter seven! Alrighty folk, here we are; next chapter we make it to the trolls, finally! Well, sort of makes it, but the plot finally gets a little thicker, so that's good! At any rate, please enjoy, and tell me what you think! You guys are awesome so go ahead and give me all your thoughts on this: the good, and bad, the constructive criticism and the praising, because feedback is _my Precious_ …

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _7 / To Each His Own Battleground_

* * *

Balin had lived for one hundred and seventy eight years. In those one hundred and seventy eight years he had seen both horror and wonder aplenty.

The burning of Erebor; the birth of his brother; the endless wondering on the fields and ranges like wild scavengers; hunger; his first job; a small child in the streets of a Man city, young and naïve and curious as he asked endless questions about why the Dwarf was so short and hairy; Moria; a field of corpses, fallen brethren and family; the heavens wearing silver in the night; the Icebay of Forochel, how the frozen lands blinded the eyes like a diamond plain at dawn—his life was well and truly filled with sights; some terrible, some wonderful, but each added up to making the Dwarf he was now proud to be.

One of those sights was a rather all too short Man—Boy—who, by general agreement, traveled with the Company but was never actually _with_ the Company. He did so without a word or spoken agreement. He simply walked behind and to the side, sat and slept without the circle of comport and warmth, ate separate and tried to speak only when necessary, if he could afford it.

In this way the young lad was… troubling, for the lack of a more adequate term. Yes, he was troubling. Not because of what he did or said but because of what he didn't do and didn't say: the lad wasn't the least bit curious.

He never asked, never questioned (unless it was Thorin's authority; then he was the first and only to do the questioning, and enough of it to spare a share for each member of the Company, a sight cringe-worthy but profitable, if you were a good judge of character) and generally was truly uninterested in the affairs of his kin and brethren. Mayhap Balin would have been far more at ease if he did question, if he did inquire and speak curiously of things he ought not to know. It would make more sense that way.

His lack of any of those things was a cause of great worry. Certainly, he appreciated that the boy kept to his own business and stayed out of theirs but it made him an anomaly in the fabric of facts that generally described the race of Men. He was different. Different meant abnormal. Abnormal meant they could not easily understand him. Their lack of understanding made him unpredictable.

Unpredictable was dangerous.

His motives were clear enough: he made his want of the moonstone very clear and the strength with which he wanted it was unsettling. He was an unknown element, a strange factor that they could not account for very well; and so as the boy kept to himself, most kept away from him in kind.

Even so, as the days past into weeks and before long a fortnight came and passed, the boy became even more an anomaly. The most baffling part? He seemed entirely genuine about it.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

Three days past. Every morning she ate leftovers with the rest and every evening she excused herself for private business after helping set up camp and prepare dinner. She came back with a sack of shellfish or minnows if they were near water, and the forest flora she knew was edible if they were not; she sat outside the group with Little Brother, quietly minding herself and her own supper. She knew that at least one of the Company always followed her when she left and she groaned out loud about it. Gilli realized now the price of eating was drenching her undershirt and trousers because she would sooner tell them she was a Nymph than tell them she was, in fact, a woman.

So she grit her teeth and waded the streams clothed and tried to reason that she understood; that she would be suspicious of her, too. She did vanish for one half hour at a time, after all. If that wasn't a dead giveaway to ulterior motives and betrayal, she didn't know what was. Every night after setting up and checking traps and helping with dinner, she gathered a sack of shellfish and minnows and quietly ate them; careful not to show the tiny raw fish she was swallowing lest to raise more eyebrows. She grit her teeth because they needed it more. She grit her teeth because she, Bae, and Finn were three; these Dwarves were thirteen, thirty, three hundred, three thousand, more.

At day, when she was free (which was most of the time) she spent hours with the Hobbit, alternating between walking by his side and riding behind him, guiding his hand. She had deeply apologized to Myrtle for the weight once she got off. His rate of improvement was baffling.

She had high hopes for him, as he stopped simply doing as she told and began actively participating ( _"Why does she react like that?" "Why does she make that noise?" Why do her ears perk up? Should I stop when she does that?" "She doesn't stop when I want her to and she stops when we need to move. How can I make her walk straight?" "Can I scratch her behind the ear like a house pet or would it anger her?"_ ). It gladdened her to have such a willing and curious student so entirely devoted to any one task he performed.

In return, having remembered that she was rubbish with preparing whatever food she procured, he gave her his mother's journal to read over; he had told her the Hobbit woman had written a great many things regarding different herbs and their uses, both culinary and medicinal, recipes of delicacies made of next to nothing and the like. He said she would like it. This… was slightly problematic as she was not good at reading, either, but she wasn't going to tell that particular piece of information to any of them—even as she was certain half the Company was equally, if not more so, illiterate. Or at least she hoped, considering in two days of spending every free moment reading, she had gotten through half a page. Her free moments were many in counting, from dawn to twilight, and then her watch shift, if the light of the moon and stars were enough.

At this rate she was just about ready to throw the blasted journal into the fire and scream.

Her frustration translated some into her work as she went about her duties in the evening. Now that she and gotten over Thorin some, her anger towards him was redirected wholly and completely to any one task that she performed and she lost herself to what she was doing entirely. As the anger ebbed and made way for more guilt, the urge to spit—literally—in his face just as he spat—metaphorically—in hers went away and now she couldn't meet his eye without feeling rightfully ashamed.

So she channeled that shame into her tasks, going about them with a new pointed fierceness so as not to seem, even in passing, like she was even thinking of slacking off. Presently, it meant tying off the cleaned intestines of game and stuffing them with finely chopped meat into sausages. It was careful work and she had to go about it slowly when she realized she was going to ruin dinner by tearing it in half if she hurried. Gilli alternated between stuffing sausage and grinding herbs into a paste with an impressive amount of devotion to the work. And yawning. She was doing that a lot as of late.

Between the cacophonous symphonies the Dwarves performed in their sleeping hours and the fact that she hadn't the heart to mount her horse and sleep in a saddle was beginning to slowly take effect. She blinked rapidly. She needed to wake up. This was no good. She needed to sharpen her mind, put the drowsiness aside. She needed to move but she needed be go about it in the most productive—

"What did that grinding bowl ever do to deserve yer wrath?" Gilli paused and frowned, turning her attention to the short man at her right, one eye on his task of chopping food and one on her. She frowned at him in confusion. "Are you making seasoning with those herbs, or dust?" he clarified, jerking his chin lightly at the grinding bowl and stone in her hands.

Gilli looked down, realizing late that she was, in fact, butchering the green and brown vegetation ruthlessly, it having gone far past the desired consistency. She almost whined pitifully, her face twisting into a distasteful grimace.

"Oh, come on! Damn it, I hope I didn't ruin this."

"Ah, don't worry about it, lad. No harm, no foul," he told her dismissively. "Although… I think I should take that before you break the stone to pieces," he added, taking the bowl from her hands with a pointed look. She turned her eyes away apologetically.

"I'm sorry, Master Dwarf. I'm just…" Gilli searched for a good word, waving her hand in the air aimlessly.

"Taking yer revenge out upon innocent kitchenware?" he offered. Gilli rolled her eyes but offered a brief smile at his attempt to lighten her foul mood.

"Angry," the guide corrected.

"At the local flora?" he pushed, offering up the vegetation his was cutting up in place of the grinding bowl. She set the tray on the rock before which she sat cross-legged and got to work at once.

"You took away set of stone utensils, only to hand me a knife?" Gilli questioned him with an arched eyebrow.

"I never said I was the wisest of us lot," he admired. "I hope I can trust you not to rid me of my fingers?" Gilli rolled her eyes and got to it again after a brief pause. "What has you in such a foul mood, lad?"

"I'm… angry," she said again, not really wanting to elaborate but at the same time childishly wishing him to ask again. He must've read it on her face because he offered a small smile.

"At who?"

"At myself, mostly. I've been… a first class moron. I don't even know why nobody hit me yet. Really, I'd have deserved it several times over! By the gods, I still do. I was so ridiculous and stupid and… and completely lacking any sense of dignity and respect and… Oh, I just need someone to smack me and tell me I am a total idiot!"

Something hit the back of her head. Hard. She jerked forward, wincing and setting down the knife to hold the back of her head.

"What…?"

"You are a total idiot," he told her. There as a beat of silence as she just looked at him with her mouth agape, much like the fish out of water that she almost was, and stupidly blinked. "Did that help any?"

"A little bit, yes. Not as much as I hoped, but beggars can't be choosers so I appreciate the effort," she admitted, unable to withhold the full-hearted smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Then perhaps instead of butchering supper you amend for whatever is your fault?"

"That's the part where it gets a bit difficult," she shook her head fiercely. "Alright, hypothetical scenario: person One and Two. Person One said something horrible, and person One was wrong, and they understand that and take responsibility for their actions. They aren't too proud to admit that when they're angry, they can't think straight. First, person One gets angry at other people, and takes it out on whatsoever catches their eye. Then they sober up and realize they acted like a bloody idiot and become angry with themselves, subsequently taking their anger out on whatever catches their eye…"

"Should I be moving out of your line of sight?" he offered. She purred her lips, she didn't want to smile at his attempts to lighten her mood. She didn't want to let him make her talk and maul things over and figure it out for herself. She didn't want to let his kindhearted attitude and constant need to make other people happy get to her.

She switched to biting her lip to keep the thankful smile at bay.

"No, I think you're safe for now. Abandon your worries: your fingers will live to see another day still attached to your hand, Master Dwarf."

"Well, I can safely say I am sensing a pattern person One's anger habits."

"Yes, which is the problem: whenever person One get angry, good things get ruined, and they haven't a clue how to fix them."

"They can start with an apology," he suggested pointedly. Gilli shook her head.

"No. Person One messed up—they know that well enough. But person Two screwed up, too. One knows that when One's angry they say things that they don't really mean, to people who are angry and also say things they don't really mean, and it's this whole misunderstanding where everybody loses but One won't be the first to apologize. See, because person Two made a mistake as well and if One apologize and tells Two that One made a mistake it will ultimately mean that person One is in the wrong and person Two gets to get away with it, which he doesn't. If One says sorry, it will mean that what Two did was alright."

"One of them has to apologize first, laddie, otherwise neither of them ever will. Trust me, Master Waters: that isn't a burden person One wants to carry with them." There was a sadness in his voice, a distant note of old regrets left unsolved. There was a story.

"What would you do about it?" Gilli pled, almost desperately. She was losing sleep, thinking how she messed up so bad, but she would not be the one to say she was sorry. She would not give him the satisfaction of having her apologize again.

"Person One said something very disrespectful and undermining and person Two responded by saying something very hurtful. Both One and Two were wounded and mournful and stuck up and just so angry at the world for all the shit that it handed them so freely because terrible things are the only things gifted freely, that neither of them really meant to hurt but it was too late to take it back. How would you go about it, if person Two was too stuck up and person One was too proud and completely rubbish with words. Because I will have you know, person Two is a master of saying a lot without speaking very much and person One is a master of the opposite."

"There you have yer answer then, Master Gilli," the Dwarf answered plainly, as if it was the most obvious thin in the world. "If person Two is a person if few words, than person One doesn't need words at all."

"Well, to that conclusion I came a few nights ago, but I haven't an idea of where to start! I had this plan in my head, but when it came to actually putting it to use, it all fell apart like a house of cards. Person One is at a complete loss; they don't know how to fix this whole mess they made."

"That, lad, is up to you to decide."

"I know but how? One hardly knows Two, if at all. How could one apologize without making a bigger mess of it?"

"It seems to me, One knows Two well enough to know that Two is a man of few words."

Gilli frowned and thought on it a while. If Thorin wasn't one for words, and her actions were pretty damn quiet, what sort of gesture would convince him that everything she was was not said in slight? If she wasn't going to do it for him but still she needed to convince him, than she would need to redirect her focus to—

—The people he cared about.

Her face split in half with a bright grin.

"Thank you so much, Master Dwarf," Gilli said earnestly. "That really solves the hypothetical scenario. Only, I don't understand: why would you be interested in advising hypothetical person One? It isn't your job to babisit a temperamental idiot."

"No, but person One was making an effort, and I like people who work hard to fix what they did wrong."

Work hard… It's been long since she fought.

"Say…" she began, "would I be allowed to partake in the spars you lot host after supper?"

The toymaker regarded her up and down slowly and she could see the doubt in his face, try though he might to conceal it. Yes, she made not much of an impression, she knew, but she oftentimes used it to her advantage.

"You want to duel with a Dwarf?" he asked her, and the almost humoured skepticism in his voice ought to have offended her. It didn't, though, as she knew it was spoken as such out of concern for her wellbeing. She knew the sight she made: too short for Man but too tall for Dwarf, and frail by both accounts. "Are you sure about it? Don't get me wrong, lad, but you don't inspire much confidence. Glóin's ax weighs more than you do."

"I've learned to fight with a blade," she assured. "I've been doing it since I was twelve." He didn't look convinced. She continued grinding herbs in a stone bowl.

"You've hardly an ounce of meat on yer bones, lad," he told her. He was understating: she could count her ribs throuhg her undershirt. "It's a miracle you don't get blown away in the breeze. If someone knocked you over you'll break."

"I know, but I can fight all the same," she assured.

"Every Dwarf here is trained for battle, taught from childhood." She knew this, which was why it had intrigued her in the first place.

"I have been trained for the streets, a very different kind of battle, and I can hold my own very well. But I need to hone my skills," she said, remembering what she was told by the youngest brothers, "so that I might fight well if I need to."

He seemed to take this to heart and shrugged, "You ought to just ask. Though, you look like they'll break you in two in the ring, no offence."

"You only think that because I want you to think that," she answered cheekily.

After supper was over she stood leaning against a tree and observed the one with the big red beard and fancy ax, Bofur's brother, and the big bald one, Dwalin, come at one another with axes. It has already been three rounds with different pairs and she had paid closer attention that night. She'd never had the opportunity to fight someone with an ax but by the looks of things it was similar enough for a sword.

Much gratefully, the axes weren't too long and those Dwarves with swords had shorter ones that were either the same or hardly longer than her shortsword. She could fight against a longsword, but it was much harder to fight someone who put you two paces away by reaching forward. She had been trying to learn the fighting styles of each Dwarf, map out their habits and weaknesses (of which they had too few and too far between) and compare it to what she knew. It left her a little disheartened.

The red-haired one knocked the other's ax clean out of his hands with so much force that it actually made Gilli swallow. She had known dwarves were physically more powerful than the other races, harsh and brutal in their built and movement. They really could break her in two, each one of them.

They laughed wholeheartedly and thanked one another for a good fight, the other Dwarves laughing and cheering along at the show. As they left the ring the Dwarves formed, the others calling out who was fighting next against who, she pushed off the trunk and spoke up, swallowing no small amount of nervousness. No, she had to practice fighting. Maybe then she would be of more use to them if they ever needed another sword.

"Might I have the next turn." It wasn't a question. The Dwarves looked at her.

"Are you sure?" someone asked. She levels them with adored look.

"If I was unsure sure, I wours not be asking," she said with more certainty than she felt.

"Lad, we are seasoned warriors," the red-bearded Dwarf told her. "Trained for war and hardened by battle. You haven't a place in a ring with any of us; not looking like that."

This she knew well. In fact, she even agreed no small amount. Now eating less, she had to fasten the belt of her trousers tighter. But she pushed her shoulders back and lifted her head with every bit of pride she had in her. She was her mother's firstborn daughter, and by every drop of Nymphian blood in her, she would not back from a challenge.

"Then let my sword speak for me and the one left standing decides where the other belongs," she said in defiance. He thought about it for a little, and then shrugged.

"Well, you certainly have no shortage of fight in words. We will see if it translates into your weapon," he told her. She bit the inside to her check to keep from smiling victoriously, small thought her victory was. She jogged into the fighting ring consisting of the bodies of the observers and stood across from her—short—opponent.

"Have you ever fought against an ax, lad?" he asked her. She shrugged.

"A few times," Gilli lied. She fought against a Man with a cleaver knife once; that was a bit different.

"First one to disarm or ground their opponent wins," he told her. She nodded. She had a feeling she wouldn't win, playing fair. As soon as she nodded he was on her. She hardly had time to react, too late realizing there would be no public announcement, attack as soon as both were ready. Hands free of her weapon. She quickly ducked under his arm, rolling forward over her head and spine, and it was odd because he was so much shorter and she had so little space between the Dwarf and the ground. She felt his ax go over her as she dropped and rolled.

She came up as she unsheathed her sword, holding it blade outward in her left hand and put her other hand in fist up in front of her face defensively in a much more hand-to-hand combat stile than the sword fighting stance. He was already going for her again, so much faster than what she was used to. Right: smaller sized meant greater speed. She adjusted her timing accordingly to this new information.

They ran at one another, metal clashing loudly and for a second she was afraid his ax would snap her sword in half by the sheer force of him. They challenged one another with a series of swings and stabs and she found she was tiring all too quickly. She really was out of shape. Already, her arms hurt with the weight of her own blade and the power of his attack, her muscles burning with a familiar strain. It has been less than two minutes.

He was a surprise to her at every turn and she struggled to keep up. Several times already she nearly lost her weapon and her footing. Her footwork was well but her arms resisted and her speed needed picking up. A lot of picking up. She was hardly able to deflect his blows. Gilli breathed heavy, once more reminding herself not to lift her sword so much. He used his closeness to the ground to confuse her fighting instincts, most of his blows coming low, the angle forcing her to bend her arm uncomfortably.

She made sure to return the favour, fighting as she would with her fists, not a blade. Her stance was one of hand-to-hand, hands in fists guarding her vitals and when she swung, she swung across her body, her sword hand but being her left forcing him to fight backward, defending a side he was unused to defending. He was excellent, no mistake there, but when he attacked her where she lacked most practice, she did the same. Everything to him was in reverse.

He came at her once more, raising his ax and she flipped her sword in her hand to point it outward properly and blocked his swing, but her arms shook as he pressed down. His strength was no match for hers. Not even close.

She let him get close to her, stepping out of the way of his ax and raising her knee sharply. He all but fell on it by force of momentum. He groaned loudly, eyes wide with unexpected pain. The group made a pained sound as well, sympathetic of her knee in his crotch. She pushed at his ax with all her might, but even as it didn't go very far, it went enough. She slipped out from underneath the deadly weapon as he recovered and swung at her sword. The force took it out of her hand.

She grinned at the look of tactical approval on his face as her sword swung from her wrist by a safety rope.

"You are a formidable fighter; the best I've ever had the honour of competing against—powerful and fast," she complimented.

Rule one: never lose your weapon.

She jerked her wrist upward, grabbing hold of the hilt and raised her sword to defeat another blow. Knowing she'd not be able to hold up his ax up this time, and that he would surely knock her to her feet by sheer strength, she raised her sword for defense but dropped to the ground, sweeping her leg backwards at the back of his knees. Her leg stung painfully at the force of the impact. She jumped to her feet, kicking his ax out of his hand and dropping once more to her knees, sword at his throat.

"But you fight clean and fair. You can't win if your opponent is a cheat," she said, pushing herself up and extending a helping hand. He took it as he got up.

"You cheated," he told her, not winded in the slightest where she could hardly catch her breath, sweat running down the side of her face and the back of her neck.

"That I did. Rule two: if you can't match your opponent blade for blade, never play fair." Gilli touched the fingers of her right hand to her heart, than tapped her forehead and extended her hand to him in an arch. He frowned. "It is the way to extend respect among my people. You'd have disarmed and put me on the ground had I fought fair. Sorry about that. Besides, the only rules you made clear was how to win."

"That I would have," he said, nodding his head to her. "Good fight, lad."

"Good fight," she agreed, still heaving. Then her face fell and she touched her hand to her stomach. "Oh… oh, that feels like… I think I fought… too soon after dinner," she swayed on her feet, feeling bile raising in her chest to her throat. The Dwarves laughed good-naturally.

"Get out of here, lad. I'd rather you not soiled our fighting ring with your dinner," he told her, clapping a hand on her shoulder. She left, leaning on a tree to settle her queasy stomach with water as she watched the next pair fight.

"You weren't kidding when you said you fought."

Gilli looked up, nodding meekly at Fíli. His brother was sparing with an older Dwarf, and if he was better with a bow than he was with a blade, she didn't want to ever find herself on the receiving side of his arrows.

"I did say it," she told him, hand holding her stomach. "And you didn't believe me. Though, I've made a big mistake eating before fighting," she admitted. "I feel as though I might be sick so I'd stay away from me if I were you," she added cheekily. "You were right: I've lost my touch."

He arched a gold brow. "If that was you losing your touch, I'd love to see you in peak condition," he said. Gilli gave a short but hearty laugh and nodded.

"Yes, so would I, and I will," she told him firmly. "You were right to say I've gotten bad. I should not have winded myself so. I will keep sparing until I return to shape. Who knows, maybe then I could go up against an enemy should the need to fight arise." He frowned. "Oh, what, you think I started for the fun of it?" She raised her voice, not to shout but in hopes that others would hear her, too. "I intend to fight if I need to. I won't be standing back or flailing like a fool if we encounter enemies. I want to be able to help, to protect if need be."

"You taught yourself that?"

Gilli nodded. "Myself, the streets… I was a street rat and beggar when Finn and I ended up out there. I had to learn to fend for myself," she explained.

"Then I feel sorry for whichever poor bastard that rose their sword against you in the villages of Men in the past," he told her and she returned his smile with no small amount of pride and glee, chuckling before she cleared her throat and sobered.

"You should see me in fighting condition."

"I intend to," he told her surely.

"I warn you: I don't play fair with the other kids." She grinned.

He grinned back, "You, Master Gilli, surprise me. I always took you for the kind to follow rules to the letter."

"Oh, I like to think I do, thank you," she assured him. "But then that would make me boring."

The next day they told her to make an effort. And the next day. And the one after that. They made her try until her muscles were liquid fire and her bones ached and her face flushed beet red, until she was quivering with exhaustion and collapsing into sleep, dead to the world and the snoring Dwarves.


	8. Fire And Ice

Hey y'all! So, I've just finished the twelfth chapter last night and I like it so much, I just can't wait to share it with you! Oh my gosh, I'm excited! Ok, I'm good now. Anyhow, we are going a little darker here. Not much, the tone drops considerably after this chapter. You'll know why in chapter nine and ten. Oh gosh. I'm so excited for these next few chapters 'cause I get to go crazy. Chapter twelve so far is my favourite because I finally get to that point in the story were I get to start messing with character psych, something I've kind of started loving to do ever since I read A Song Of Ice And Fire. Everyone is so messed up and dysfunctional in that series, I love it and I hate it at the same time.

This chapter got quite a bit longer than I intended for it to. Sorry about that. I had to cut out a whole chunk and stick it in the next chapter because of it :(( Oh well. No harm, no foul, right?

Anyway, onto chapter eight. I hope you like it!

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _8 / Fire And Ice_

* * *

They had set up camp somewhat earlier that evening. Where they normally waited until the sun had begun setting, tonight they had stopped some hours before sundown. They sat down for supper near a narrow yet rapid stream; the forest thinning drastically so they had to set up a tighter patrol and watch schedule. Like nearly every night before, Gilli had volunteered to stay up, sparing some of the older members of the Company much needed rest. While she knew that, whenever she stayed up for watch, one eye of her co-watcher was on the world and the other eye on her, tonight all eyes and ears would be sharp only on the land about them. It wasn't an ideal place, but with the stream rushing loudly past them, it would drown out any noise the Dwarves might make waking up, if danger was to them. On top of that, should they need it, the water would wash away their scent.

Tasks and chores were listed off by force of habit, though everybody already knew the rotation and she and Glóin broke off to the stream to gather water and fish for the stew Bombur decided he would make tonight. It was one from Bilbo's mother's cooking journal and one the round Dwarf was familiar with, so they thought to collaborate in making it.

Having filled the large cauldron and hauled it back wordlessly—it was a fierce struggle, but in the past days Gilli had begun putting small amounts of weight back on in muscle mass—and gone back with a fishing net. The stunted Dwarf, draped head to toe in metal, stayed on the shores while Gilli stood on the wet stones in the rushing water, balancing skillfully on the slippery surface. The rapids crashed over her bare feet, the water brushing between her toes in the most pleasant way, tickling her skin coolly like gentle breath. She'd have dived right into the water and let it take here away had she been alone. She would go all the way downstream, over the bumps and slopes and into the smooth river and… But she wasn't alone.

They'd not said a word to each other even as they moved downstream until they came upon a small but prosperous waterfall. Fish, small and large, leaped up into the air in flailing attempts to scale the rocks so often that they would have gathered enough in no time at all. It was a sweet and amusing sight. They alternated between setting the net into the water and simply holding it up until several would flop in on their own accord. It was during one of these instances that one of the fish, a large one resembling a brown trout in colouring, jumped into the net they were holding. It panicked at once, fighting its fate, struggling to force itself out of its binds and back into its natural habitat. It eventually flopped helplessly out of the net onto the ground at Glóin's feet but not before nearly smacking the dwarf in the face and at this, Gilli could hardly suppress a laugh.

The Dwarf had moved out of the way as the fish fell, and looked at her grimly as she began chuckling. The look on his face quickly turned her chuckle into a laugh—recalling a memory of not so long ago, and a steam much like theirs. She cleared her throat and straightened her face, and three fish latter they sat on rocks across from one another, scaling and gutting their catch.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking upstream at where the others were setting up a fire pit. "I wasn't laughing at you, Master Dwarf. Really! It was only… it reminded me of something that happened a few years ago. Bae had been standing on the rock in the steam and a fish jumped in his face. Though unlike you, a Dwarf with warrior reflexes, he failed to duck. It smacked him in the face and he fell in the water. I swore to myself to never let him live it down, how he flailed aimlessly, trying to catch his balance of something."

By the look on his face, he was entirely uninterested, but with caution he questioned, "This Bae fellow, you mentioned him in your letters. Another brother?" His tone was that of an interrogation. She pressed her lips into a tight line. Again with the mistrust. It was getting very old very quickly. She understood they would like to know as much about her as they could but some things needed to be treated with at least a pretense of respect.

"Bae is my son," she bit back with no little amount of venom in her voice. "And put that look away. I don't much appreciate you spitting his name like some foul disease." Now, Glóin wasn't a very talkative fellow, certainly not to strangers like her, and whenever the two interacted they exchanged words only when necessary. He wasn't much for pointless chatter and Gilli could respect that.

That is until she said the word 'son'. She hadn't meant to reveal she had a child, much less a young boy, left back in the village on the outskirts of the Shire, a day's walk south of Bree. It had slipped out in anger and insult, but for the life of her she'd not regretted saying the words to him. The Dwarf's face lit up like dawn and, hours later when bellies were full and some Dwarves were sparring with one another good-naturally under the light of the stars, they still talked.

"Does yours ever do that thing, where you tell him to eat his food and he picks at it with that face, like he would sooner dine with an Orc than touch it but says, "Yes, papa," all the same. Then you turn around for five minutes and when you come back again the food is finished and you go about feeling proud that you child listens to you, only to find it two days later, wrapped up in a cloth under his bed?"

"Oh, under Gimli's bed's not the worst place I've found some of his dinners, lad! Shoes, bed sheets, the closet—they're all clever little rats, they are. But be glad: the older they get, the less creative they become. Soon enough you'll never know if that little rat is eating anything at all," he assured her. "You'll never see it again, anyway. It's either their stomach or into the chamber pot and out the window."

"Oh, thank the gods; I thought mine was broken!" she exclaimed. "I mean, I thought I taught him to be mindful of food, to be conservative and careful about what he eats and how much because we needed to save more often than not, but he just throws half of it out! There is no reasoning with him!"

"That is why you sketch your children as often as possible as babies—"

"—It's the ultimate weapon," she agreed. "Oh! Here, look at this," she said, shifting on the ground so that she was facing the Dwarf instead of the duels and shifted through the pockets of her vest until she found a small packet of leather secured with a rope. She undid the knots and took out several illustrations and sketches that Finn mad with a swift but talented hand.

"This one; Bae was two years, discovering earth worms for the first time," she explained, holding out a square of parchment with a small toddler with earth-stained hands and feet, covered from head to toe in the sluggish ribbon-like creatures. They were everywhere; in his hair, on his arms, half way up his nose—the boy knew no limits.

"He thought they were edible. I spent the next two nights holding him over a cooking pot as he pukes all the worms and dirt he'd eaten," she told with a face of it disgust as she showed the quick hand-sketch Finn made from memory, a very accurate depiction of the boy. His clothes and face were blackened with mud and dirt and if not for his age, she'd have taken him for a coal miner. Glóin laughed at the sight. It was the first of many old pictures exchanged that night and each night to follow, as the two parents found comfort in that theirs was not the only demon in saint's clothing.

From tossed away food, to mud in bed, bloodied noses to broken bones, from the first lie to the first "Where do babies come from?" in the nights to come few embarrassing secrets were left unspoken. They found solace in that someone understood, someone knew. Because Bae didn't understand, because Gimli was expensive, because things had to be sacrificed.

She found comfort in telling him how much she missed her little boy, how much she hated that she had to leave him every time. She shared with him her boy's words and he offered his own tale of depart in odd and carefully delivered bits. He told of how the young Dwarf child clung to his arms and legs and screamed "Please don't go! Please don't leave us!" as Glóin tried to walk away. A young boy, old enough to understand and too young to truly comprehend the importance of his father's turning his back and putting one foot in front of the other as his wife held their flailing son in her arms, quietly praying for his safe return to her.

Glóin's had offered a compound picture frame from his cloak pocket; a sliver hexagon locket with two portraits within. On the left was… a women? Maybe? She was, to the beauty standards of the Nymph at any rate, hideous; with facial hair like a man on her jaw and under her ears that made Gilli internally cringed, a much too rounded forehead and deep-set nose ridge. She just barely stopped herself from rubbing her own jaw in mild disgust: women were simply not meant to have beards. On the right was a stunted boy with too much hair on his face for a child who looked hardly twelve. Dwarves were very hairy as a race in general, this she knew; but she based her opinion of the young on Fíli and Kíli, the latter of whom had very little in terms of beard at all.

All the same, she smiled at the Dwarf and commented, "Oh, your wife's beard is absolutely lovely! And your son is coming into his hair very finely, Master Dwarf. Oh, they are beautiful!" with as much heartfelt honestly as she had in her person. To each his own, she knew. Maybe by Dwarvish standards they really were beautiful, so she acknowledged this out loud and felt a little better about herself as a person when he couldn't have looked happier. It was the happiness of someone who rarely got this compliment from those not of Dwarvish blood.

She'd not revealed much about her son in regards to age, and he didn't ask. She returned the favour, only taking what she was given, even as she was curious as to how old Gimli truly was in spite of his childishly round face.

"I've only been away just short of a moon's turn, but I already miss him," she admitted several days later when they two were paired up for watch. Their shift, spent in silence, was coming to an end and she said this just before going to wake up the next pair of Dwarves. "I look at the stars every night and imagine maybe tonight he's looking up, too. It gives me comfort, knowing we are looking at the same moon and stars. It somehow makes the distance…"

"Less," he offered quietly. She nodded solemnly. "Still too far." She nodded again. They woke up the next pair and she went to try to sleep. Maybe she wasn't so different from these Dwarves after all: they were both just trying to take their children home.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

"So? Can I read my own letters now?" the guide demanded impatiently, reaching out her hand expectantly. The second set of letters had come back to her and she handed them off to the Dwarves to read over, not having seen a single word for herself. They had done a full scale check of the parchment, going so far (again) as to light a tiny fire and hold the papers over it so as to review any possible invisible ink messages. There weren't any, the paranoid menaces, but she let them all the same.

"Come on, give me—please! I want to know what they say!" she urged restlessly, looking over the Dwarf's shoulder. Balin nodded in approval.

"All seems to be in order, laddie. You understand why we must," he said almost apologetically for intruding on the privacy of not just her but her brother and son. She nodded with a kind smile.

"I do, and I thank you for letting me exchange letters in the first place. I really am grateful, for I know how it must be for you. I hold no grudge or ill will over it. But may I please read them now?"

The white-bearded Dwarf handed her the letters without commentary over their content and she appreciated this. Two before him—his brother, Dwalin, and Dori—have already read over them and done much the same, a courtesy she appreciated. Anyone with less honour would have commented, made a joke even.

"Thank you, Master Balin." Gilli smiled as she brought the first of five small squared of parchment to her face and began, slowly but surely and with every bit of persistence she had, reading. It was two hours later that she finally finished, and only because Finn knew to use small, short words. All was well, except Bae got into a fight with some older kids who made a joke about her boy's less than average height. He broke three noses, two arms, and more than a handful of fingers; himself walking away with no few injuries. Finn had stepped in when he saw, even as one of the boys pushed Bae down and the five started kicking him. Bae walked away with a broken arm and a few cracked ribs, split lip, bleeding nose, and a broken pride when Uncle Finn had to save him. Gilli only shook her head.

"Again, Bae? Really? Have you learned nothing about picking fights with people your own size? She asked herself when she read this, but her boy's voice was clear in her head: _"Then I wouldn't get to fight with anyone."_

She could only close her eyes and groan and ask Glóin later, "Do they never learn?"

To which he asked, "Who, children? Or men? We're all fighters in the blood, lad. On the bright side, he's nothing to do but get better at it." It wasn't a very comforting thought.

Finally finished reading, Gilli thought to revert to her riding lessons with the Hobbit. His improvement on horseback was baffling. His willingness to learn combined with the devotion to be as least out of place as he could in the Company drove him to completely overcome his discomfort in all but a fortnight. Now he rode as well as the rest, a feat she praised him gladly for. It made her smile, to have such a willing and eager student who learned so passionately every new thing she told him of. With every new deed well accomplished there was no good-hearted pride she was willing to hold back, even as the Hobbit himself was yet too tentative to celebrate.

It reminded her of when Bae first took up the bow, and while she clapped and praised he took no cheer until he accomplished something perfectly. She had encouraged the shortest member of their company that he was doing leagues better than when he had started, but the Hobbit was too hard on himself in that regard. She had read between the lines eventually, and smiled to herself later on: if it wasn't good enough for them, it wasn't good enough for him. A stressful idea to act upon, but noble, and Gilli retired him with new respect afterward.

"Stop being so hard on yourself," she had told him. "Look at you: you don't even need me anymore! Oh, if Bae was such a fast learner as you, my life would be all in rainbows and roses," she admitted almost sourly. "Now there's patience of a ten year old boy for you; couldn't sit still for five minutes, that one. You, a master Baggins, are every teacher's favourite student."

She looked around then, and a smile bloomed like dawn across her face. "Oh, I know this place!" the guide exclaimed with glee. "A farmer and his family, a wife and two sons, live some hour's walk from here. A lovely family, by my word; I've stayed with them twice, during two particularly bad storms." Mind, she didn't conjure the storms, but she hadn't the heart to dispel them. The rain was absolutely lovely and while her traveling party was inside the too-small farmhouse she danced out in the downpour, enjoying the calming, serene sensation of the heavens dome weeping upon her. She and paid the farmer, of course, but he was a very pleasant elder man, and his two sons, Khaia and Taial, were so very sweet; boys of eight and ten respectively last she came across them three seasons ago.

When they learnt she traveled everyplace in Middle-Earth they begged her to tell them tales. Their mother had scolded them for unbecoming behavior in the face of guests, but she assured the older woman she didn't mind. She gladly spun tales, half true and half… prettied up a little, but who could blame her? Adventurers were so much more interesting when embellished.

"Oh, his sons are simply precious! Although, if I were you I'd hide my ears. I swear to you, the moment they see you they will trample you with questions. Going to think you're a half Elven fairy, they will. Going to start tugging on your ears and making wishes so I'd not get off Myrtle in your place," she warned him.

"I have a big family, Master Gilli; I grew up in Hobbiton, surrounded by Hobbit children," he told her surely. "I have grown immune to everything that is adorable, of that I assure you."

"Oh, you say that now," Gilli grinned.

"That is only because you have never been to Hobbiton, Master Gilli."

"I have, actually. Some… two years ago? Three? No, definitely two. Only for a day, but I have been there; frankly, I must agree with you, Master Baggins: the children of your race are simply little hellions disguised as furry kittens," she laughed. When they came upon Master Tamal's farm some hour later, Gilli covered her mouth with her hands.

"By the gods!" The farmhouse was decimated, in half-burned ruins in the field. They were alright three seasons past! The farmer, his young wife and two boys, they were alright! Oh, by the gods, what…?

They couldn't stay here. They had to move. Imladris was a day's walk away. They would get there on the morrow if they kept moving. They would seek shelter there and maybe the Elves would know what happened here.

Gilli found herself caught in the doorway—in what used to be the doorway, she corrected herself—recalling the first time she met the farmer and his two sons, how they rushed to hide shyly behind their father's legs, clutching one another for safety. Big eyes, small voices, and wide smiles as she told them stories of lands far away. They were so eager to hear her tales, but fell asleep as she told them all the same. Their mother was cautious, already versed in the cruelties of the world and hesitant to let her children out of her sight, but her face softened as she recognized in Gilli a fellow parent, a mother, despite the guide's disguise.

Gandalf looked about the minuscule farmhouse hardly enough to house four—and yet they let me and my companions stay twice, Gilli thought to herself—observing what was left of the home with no small amount of distress.

"A farmer and his family used to live here," he said.

Though it was not to her she still whispered in a soft voice, "He had two children." Then she looked at the ancient wrinkled pilgrim. "We can't stay here," and now her voice was sharp and sober as it ought to have been.

"Yes, I agree," he said, and then louder, "I think it would be wiser to move on." She turned around, seeing Thorin marching up to the desolate household. She quietly exited, knowing when she was intruding and gave the old Wizard and old King a few moments to discuss whatever they needed. Not five minutes later Gandalf stormed out of the ruined home that stood whole a short time ago. Gilli took his place quickly, addressing the Dwarf King as soon as she crossed the threshold.

"We cannot break camp here, Master Dwarf; it isn't safe here. Imladris is a short walk from here, we can get there not long after—"

"We will not be setting foot in that place, I will not say so again," he cut her off with venom in his voice that was not directed at her.

"Put aside this childish grief you have with the Elves. Look around you: do you think this is the hand of time?" Gilli demanded, even as she knew he did not. "If we stay here, we risk bringing upon us the very thing that had done this to the home!" she reasoned.

"It has been a season, by the look of it. Whatever has done this is long gone," he told her. She looked around: he was right. If nature was anything to go by, it has been all of spring like this. Gilli shook her head despite agreeing. Whatever did it had no reason to linger.

"And if not?" the guide asked, just because it was the opposite of what Thorin said. "What if whatever is responsible for the destruction is still lurking in the wood? What if it comes back? See reason, Master Dwarf! Imladris is a day's walk from here. If we turn to them we will be offered good food that we would not have to scavenge for, and a warm bed because the gods know we need one. We can rest and replenish our supplies."

"The Elves," he spat the word like spoilt milk, "will give us nothing, just as they had before."

"The Elves will offer you warmth and food! Damn it, Durinson; put aside your childish prejudice! They are called The Last Homely House for a reason, and that reason is they offer sanctuary to weary travellers with open arms and kindness! Be reasonable, Master Dwarf."

"You wish for me to be reasonable? We came to them for help. Without a home, without our families; burned and starving, we crawled to their doorstep and they looked beyond us as we were too low for them to see. We asked for their warmth and kindness and they, so high and mighty in their sheltered valley, did nothing! Is that reasonable enough for you, boy?" He was all but shouting. Gilli did not flinch.

"I know my histories, Durinson, and I know the Elves of Imladris did nothing to you but offer sanctuary! They and the Elves of Greenwood are not the same, and as those in the woods let the world pass them by, the Elves of Imladris give assistance to those who need it. Only, you were far too angry to see it, is that not right? You saw what His Lord Thranduil did, or rather what he did not, and at once you assumed that none would help just as he– don't you dare look at me like that, Durinson. Don't you dare tell me not to assume things I don't understand; I can see it written all over your face. I am young, but I am not an idiot— despite the fact that you may to believe it."

"I will not be seeking shelter in the caves of an enemy," he told her, and by so few words said so much that it almost took her aback.

It took her all of a second to realize three things: first, he was scared for his people, afraid to move a single step toward something that in hindsight may or may not have caused them some degree of harm by action or lack thereof. Second, he had learned the hard way what it was to trust too easily and it had burned him far more than any forge fire could; there was history there, and anger that was directed not only at the Elves; some old hurt that had yet to heal. There was a story there that she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Third, the years have made him all too good at choosing the lesser of two evils, a notion that all but made her tremble at the implications of. What sort of choices had he to make, that forced him to take one terrible thing because it was a little less terrible than another? How many things, life or otherwise, were sacrificed because they were the kinder of two impossible options?

Her anger ebbed but her voice hardened. Gilli hated herself for the spiteful words even as she spoke them.

"Interesting you put it like that. As far as I remember you are those who dwell underground," she spat, "in the dark." Gilli knew the implication of her words, knew it was cruel but she pressed on all the same. "Would you have come to King Thranduil's aid had the situations been reversed? Would you have sacrificed thousands of your men in a battle you could not win?"

"Do you imply I have little value for the lives of my people?" He took a step towards her and for a fraction of a second she almost stepped back, almost shrunk into herself. The anger rolling off him was as palpable as the waves crashing into the bottom of a cliff. She felt it hot on her skin like a burn, wanted to escape it because it was wrong, it was too much.

"I imply that your inability to see as others do has put you at a terrible disadvantage as a King. That you cannot put yourself in another's shoes had deafened and blinded you to understand why King Thranduil did what he did. You are incapable to let go of the past because you're scared that if you do, you will be left with nothing. You are terrified to let it go because you think it will take the last from you and you hate it! This bitterness at everybody else is all the legacy of the King of scavengers, without a kingdom or crown, because what else have you left but your anger at all the shit life has handed you so willingly? And you are _terrified_ to lose it because you remember no other way to live. _That_ is your truth, Durinson, and it is the only truth behind this unwillingness to go to Imladris for help!"

He punched her. Whether because she was too close to the truth for comfort or because she could not have been more wrong, she didn't know. Gilli fell back from the force of the blow, clutching her mouth as she leaned on the remains of what used to be the kitchen wall; when she straightened herself, she spat blood. The inside of her lower lip was caught on her teeth and she had to curl her finger in her mouth to unhook flesh from bone with a sharp hiss. Her index finger came away bloodied, and the metallic taste of blood costed her tongue thickly. Her teeth hurt.

She looked at him, angry that he had hit her and satisfied that she finally, finally, drew a reaction. It felt good to know she had that power over someone. Even as it hurt to move her lips, they pulled back into a ghost of a smirk.

Got it.

She spat blood again.

"Do not dictate me your unfunded beliefs, boy; you know not what you say. The Elves had abandoned us in our time of greats need. They, with all the power the Valar have granted them, looked over us and you ask me to forget this?" His voice was loud again, just shy of bellowing. "You have forgotten your place." She almost punched him—it took her a moment to realize he had not said the word 'woman' at the end of his sentence and was offering her no insult. Not the kind she was half-expending, to any degree.

"I have forgotten nothing, Durinson," she told him angrily. "My place if right here; in the empty void where your clear-minded logic used to be. I do not know why I have let Gandalf talk me into going with you!" By the look on his face, she supposed his trail of thought was along the lines of, _I do not know why I have let Gandalf talked me into taking you along_.

"Look, I know you've been hurt by them in the past and frankly, I'm not one to speak of letting go of grudges. I hold a few of those myself; I'm no saint. But for the love of all that is good, stop being so paranoid and accept that some people really do give a damn about what happens to you!"

"I suppose you fancy yourself one of those people?" Thorin demanded, and again it struck her how hurt he must have been in the past, how betrayed. With thick self-disgust she realized she could play on that, if only a little.

"I fancy myself nothing that I am not. I only do my job, and my job is to tell you that nothing good will come of staying here. Of course, the final choice is with you, Your Highness. How could I forget?" she hissed angrily.

"I would not expect the understanding of a Man who has only ever relied on himself," Thorin barked.

Gilli flinched. The woman took a half-step back, unable to look away from the Dwarf King. She bit her tongue, her lip, the inside of her cheek, and her efforts to keep back the wetting of her eyes just barely paid off. He was right, of course. Of course. How could he be anything but? Surely, she was her mother's first daughter, and the blood in her veins was not of a lowborn, but she had never had to live as he did. She, her brother, and her son, but the extent to which she had to care for other people ended there. Her traveling parties, while under her care, we're never truly her responsibility. Not like the Company was Thorin's. Not like those who belonged to Erebor were Thorin's.

In the Company everyone asked everyone, and everyone watched everyone's back. They were each other's backup plan, each other's way out. They could rely on everybody else to look out for them, to keep them safe. They were interdependent. If one fell they would continue functioning, certainly, but they'd not be as good as when they were whole and it was Thorin's responsibility to make sure they don't have to; a concept Gilli only understood in theory, and the fact that he knew this stung far more than it should have.

His words _hurt_ , and she didn't understand why it mattered so much.

"Yes, well; I supposed the truth is always a slap in the face, isn't it," she said, her voice harder than she intended for it to be. Neither of them spoke again.

* * *

Ok, so, as you can see here, I finally got to the point where things are taking a turn downhill. From here on out I get to try my hand in so many ideas regarding death and loss and coping mechanisms and depression and so many dark themes. Gosh, I am so excited! I absolutely loved how the hobbit went from first time we see him to last time we see him, I loved how the trouble maker bros laughed and joked less and less in basically every scene, I loved how everyone's favourite brooding King started out as just this "mope bastard brooding over his lost gold" (not my words) to just finding total peace in realizing he would, spoiler, have to die in order to cut the head off the snake, and accepting that his people would be alright without him, that it's ok, that he's allowed to be at peace now, that everyone would be alright and he didn't have to carry this weight on his shoulder anymore. It's a topic that was always so horrible to deal with in real life, and I'd not wish it on anybody but that fact that I get to explore it in writing is a gift to me.

Thank you, my loves, for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, have a wonderful day :)) And remember to let me know what you all think!


	9. Reckless

Chapter nine! Fist, before all our things, thank you all so much for the reads and the reviews and the favs and follows! You guys are awesome! Onto business, I've not much to say of this chapter. Only that I hope you guys enjoy it and tell me what you all think :))

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _9 / Reckless_

* * *

Gilli picked her shortsword out from the swiftly diminishing pile. When the Trolls captured them, they were ordered to strip of their weapons under pain of the overgrown imbeciles killing those who were captured. She had stripped most of her knives, leaving herself with a few small blades tucked safely in her arm sheath, calf sheath and boots to protect herself once she was manhandled out of her sack—

 _—It reeked of chard flesh, the overly sweet scent of cooked meat overwhelmingly potent even as so much time had passed since the bag was last used; an implication she tried to avoid thinking about. The sack was stained in somebody else's blood, the red having browned over time, leaving it stiff and rough to the touch. There was something sharp stabbing her toes in the too-tight sack, like a shrapnel of some kind the substance of which she shuttered to guess, and a living creature was tickling its way down the back of her undershirt. Gilli daren't look down at where someone's arm—what used to be somebody's arm—lay under her right hip—_

—Her more visible weapons had to go, though. She had carefully sheathed her sword and laid it down, wincing when it was tossed so carelessly into the pit their ponies once occupied. The ground was drenched with hard, dried blood, browned with time—something cracked under her shoe. She stilled, chanting in her head to not look down, forcing herself to pretend it was only a branch. The guide picked out three more of her blades, carefully not to look anywhere that was not the pile of weaponry, and moved out of the holding pen. She carefully avoided looking at the stone statues, despite a small smile tugging on her lips at the absurdity of the situation and some of the reactions it got ( _"Look! I can fit my whole head in its mouth!"_ ).

She sat down on the forest floor at the edge of the clearing, taking out her knives. One was painted in Troll blood from when she threw it, admittedly a little poorly—

 _—"Duck!" she shouted, drawing back her right hand, her left otherwise preoccupied. The Dwarf hadn't wasted a second, too used to trusting his comrades in the battlefield. The small knife, though hitting its target in the fingers and drawing a piggish howl, sailed narrowly over the healer's hair. She felt she would hear of it later; something along the lines of almost killing him—_

—She wiped the flat of the dagger on her sleeve; the tunic was ruined, anyway. Stained in the browns of the earth and green lines of grass red of her own blood—

 _—The fall had hurt. Not as much as she had expected, but then there was a difference between falling out of a stationary tree and being all but kicked aside by a Mountain Troll. She rolled, taking the brunt of the fall with her shoulder as she caved in on herself. Feet first, then her shoulder, smoothly rolling on her back and coming up in a defensive crouch. The rocky terrain underneath her was merciless and the stones she had fallen over sharp. The tear in her sleeve oozed red slowly, just beneath where her shoulder met her arm. Gilli hissed in pain even as she leaped to her feet and rushed back into the battle—_

—Gilli used that throwing knife to cut the damaged sleeve off, now stained to the elbow in red, and used her teeth to help wrap her right shoulder. The guide breathed heavy, hissing in pain but at least the stab of the stone wasn't so deep. Cleaning it was top priority, maybe sew it if she was feeling up for it. Her current tunic would have to go to rags and scraps. She could use the water back at camp to pick out the sandy grains of stone and dirt that peppered the clotting wound. It was a disgusting, vomit-enduring sight, to see her raw flesh imprinted with grains and mud like unnatural freckles. Had she a weaker stomach she would have been sick.

She tended to her hurts and wounds as the others did to theirs, nursing twisted ankles from being dropped so much and cuts that nature had dealt them; as the Trolls had no weapons of their own. Gilli looked around, counting heads for the umpteenth time and closed her eyes gratefully. No major injuries, but for broken pride and a thick assortment of bruises. They made the best of the situation, the youngers finding childish glee in it all now that it was over ( _"Fíli, look at me: I'm the King of the Mountain Troll Rock!"_ ).

Gilli unsheathed her shortsword, the crust of blood was a thick blanket over the scratched metal. The sword has never been polished, not since she purchased it thirty-five years ago, but only twice before had it tasted the blood of something that was larger than she—

 _—"Move!" Gilli cried, eyes wide as she reached helplessly forward. She had every confidence he would be all right, that his comrades and friends would help him out should he need it but with a face so young… and she herself a mother… it must've been a womanly thing; something every girl, every mother naturally had because they were women, because they had children. Ori had impeccable aim, even with his minuscule slingshot he still blinded the Troll in one eye with a single well-aimed stone once lying at his feet._

 _The Troll dropped the star-haired Dwarf he was holding, hollering in pain as his vacant eye socket gushed and for that moment Gilli could only grin at the young scholar, but that moment past in a blink when the giant reached for him. The scribe bolted fast but came upon the second Troll immediately. Gilli, standing close enough, dashed to him despite knowing she ought not to, knowing he would be perfectly fine with his brethren. She crashed into him, shoulder first, knocking him to the side and thrust her shortsword up into the palm of the Mountain Troll. The force of the impact sent her stumbling backwards as the giant cried out. Gilli's foot caught on an uneven root, taking her footing from her and the guide fell back. She had expected her sword to slip lose from its hand but it stuck deep and when the Troll straightened up and swung his arm, it took her with it._

 _She released the hilt of her sword but the safety rope around her wrist, forcing her hand into an a natural and painful position, held fast. The momentum sent her crashing into the ground hard, her wrist aching mightily from the odd twist and rope burn. High on adrenalin, she recovered quickly and lashed out, slashing at the Troll's calf angrily and ducking between its legs when it grabbed for her, only to howl as another Dwarf hacked at its fingers. The ax severed one of the appendages—_

—Gilli rubbed at her abused wrist absently, the angry red welts that ringed it like a bracelet stinging, making her cringe, but she paid it no mind as she examined the members of the company. Her eyes fell on the small Hobbit—

 _—Not to say, of course, that she wasn't a little impressed. Truthfully, for one dreadful moment she thought the Hobbit would be quartered. Recalling the conversation, she had with Oakenshield earlier in the day, she could have sworn that he would do it; that he would choose the majority over the minority. He ought to have, logically speaking. It would have been better to let the Trolls kill Master Baggins for his men to cut down the overgrown imbeciles and escape safely. Considering the Halfling most likely signed a contract much like her own, Thorin would not be held accountable for his death by rights of the deal Bilbo had agreed to._

 _Yet, even as the Mountain Trolls ordered weapons down, the Dwarf King glared and belowed and stabbed his blade into the earth forcefully, shortly followed by herself and everybody else, much to their collective disbelief. Not because they expected Thorin to throw away an innocent life, but because it was not a tactically wise decision, and one that literally put them out of the frying pan and into the fire. Gili was unsure how she felt about it, that despite clearly having to do so in the past—for she had seen the look in his eyes, that momentary glaze that came over them as he recalled a time long past where he was faced with a similar choice—he didn't make the immoral call this time—_

—She smiled and stood, putting away her cleaned sword, and went to the small Hobbit to extend her thanks for being cleverer than the rest of them, as none other would have done what he had.

"It was nothing worth thanking for, Master Gilli. Surly not as impressive as you paint it to be." He shrugged it off.

"But it was, Master Baggins," she assured. "None of the rest of us had the wits to distract them, more to come up with the ridiculous validations so as to why they ought not eat us. You bought us precious time. That is nothing slight…"

"I know one Dwarf who would disagree," he said, looking past her as he spoke this. Gilli turned around, arched a brow, and turned back to him.

"Don't let his perpetually foul mood ruin yours, Master Hobbit," she advised. "People say things they don't really mean when they are angry.

"He is right, though, isn't he? I was the one who got us captured in the first place." Yes, that was true, but they'd not be here if Oakenshield had listened to the reasoning of an ancient Wizard and traveled guide. Surely she was no Ranger by any stretch of imagination, but that didn't mean she didn't know what she spoke of.

"Only because those two idiots over there," she said, pointing at the blonde and brunette brothers, "didn't want to get into trouble with Thorin. Sending you to three Mountain Trolls alone without backup?" If Bae had done that she'd have fed him to the Trolls herself.

"Master Gilli, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but right now it isn't helping me."

Gilli pursed her lips and said, "I'm not trying to do anything. Well, I am, maybe a little, but that's beside the point. The point is that I'd like to extend my thanks for your cunning," she told him earnestly. It might have been a small act but it was the most productive thing any civilian she had ever traveled with had ever done. She couldn't help but compare him to some of the others, who surely would have burst into wild hysterics that would inadvertently serve to anger their captors. His adaptability was a trait far more valuable than any physical strengths or advantages.

She rushed about the clearing afterward, checking personally on everybody, helping where she could as dawn turned to morning. She'd not had a moment's rest for some two hours as the Company recuperated, dwarves sing and cleaning up and patching up injuries, which was why she missed the hot angry gaze on her back until much later. It made her straighten and turn around seeking the owner of the glare, and found Thorin quietly conversing with Gandalf. When he caught her looking he held her eyes and narrowed his with every bit of mistrust he directed towards her thus far. This was a little different, however. This was the look of someone who knew something important.

Gilli swallowed thinly at the implication.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

"When were you going to tell me?" Thorin asked impatiently, looking over the grey pilgrim's arm at where the guide was rushing to and fro, offering a helping hand to everyone he came by. Gandalf followed his gaze and huffed with something akin to amusement, a fact the Dwarf King didn't much like. Was it so amusing that he couldn't not trust the people he journeyed and ate and slept with? That guide cleaned their food and helped prepare their meals and watched over them in the night. It would be good to know who this Man was in the very least.

"Master Gilli has many things he would prefer to keep to himself, most of which don't concern you, so I'm afraid you will have to be more specific so as to what it is that you have discovered regarding our guide."

"Don't play me for a fool, Gandalf. You know very well what I speak of. The contract he signed stated clearly that we will not answer for his fate but if he is of royal blood, that changes things," he warned lowly. It changed very little in the mat basic sense, but in the grand scale of things… It made sense now, that he would say, "My people." The boy was without a kingdom, that much was clear. Whether he left or was forced away was a far more pressing question; upon its answer depended the level of consequence to his own people should harm come to the guide.

They boy was not half as clever with his words as he thought himself to be. Thorin had discovered this piece of information the day prior, just before he had finally indulged in his great desire to strike him. Few voices in his time have caused such a great need in the Dwarf Kind to hit the speaker, violently and repeatedly. They boy had reached a new level. What kept him from doing so was the stark, belated realization that it should have come to him a moon's turn ago, in the tavern where the two first met: the lad was of royal blood. He held himself too high, too straight, too tall to be anything less. How he spoke, how he carried himself when his guard was up and his formalities in play, how he squared his shoulders and lifted his head, how he had read the Dwarf King.

The air of him, the baring of noble blood, was too obvious to miss in these instances and yet the raggedy cloak and chewed, muddied nails, and rough, scarred fingers had fooled him so entirely and for so long. Somehow it had only come to him when the boy spoke now, of walking in the Elvenking's shoes, the tone of his voice implying that no, those shoes would not be too big—a thought Thorin bitterly admitted to having as well. Those were the words of a leader, yes, and he supposed as a guide the weight of responsibility over the lives of others was a heavy burden on the boy's too narrow shoulders; but it was the way he spoke the words that made Thorin realize one very puzzling, incomprehensible fact: the boy was born into the line of royalty.

Thorin may not have a crown, but he recognized the familiar mind of a man responsible for his people. The familiar mind of a would-be King.

"Ah," Gandalf said. "So that is what you speak of."

"We're you expecting a different answer?"

"In part," the Wizard admitted unhelpfully. "Gilli Waters in many things, none of which you will be privy to by myself. That is his story to tell, if he is ready. If you wish to know who he is, I'm afraid you will have to ask him yourself, Thorin; though I cannot guarantee he will tell you."

"I will not have him jeopardize this journey. If this will compromise the integrity of our quest I will not hesitate to silence him by whichever means necessary," Thorin warned, recalling the night they met in the pub. The boy was too observant for his own good. If asked, Thorin would have plainly answered they were traveling to visit relatives, but the boy didn't need to ask. It left him with few options. Two, to be precise: take him alone, as he had guessed too much, or silence him once and for all, for he would travel and he would talk. Gandalf would not appreciate to learn just how seriously Thorin had concede for the latter.

"If you mistrust him so, speak to him," Gandalf said. "It is not I from who you must seek your answers." The old Wizard was cryptic and unhelpful. Thorin would have taken Gandalf's advice and questioned the boy personally, but when he took his gaze from Gandalf's to search their guide out in the group, the lad was gone.

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

Gilli hissed as she peeled off her vest. It was stained and dirty, too, but hardly as much as her shirt. She could wash it easily. The blood would never come out now, far too old to be cleaned, but it was still in good condition. It would need stitching, though, in the sleeve. Rolling her shoulder hurt, though. The guide adjusted so that she was sitting more comfortably on the fallen tree with her legs on either side instead of one, and took out the knife in her arm sheath. Carefully not to cut herself, she sawed at the filthy makeshift bandage she had made.

She would have untied it to save the fabrics, but with one arm the knot would be undoable. Carefully, she cut away at the strips of ruined sleeve she had wrapped around her shoulder and arm and pealed them away. They didn't come easily, the clotted blood having broken and oozed into the material. The scab crusted over, firmly attaching the sleeve to the wide wound. Gilli grit her teeth and tore roughly. It came away, taking the scab with it and her shoulder began bleeding again. She groaned at the pain and reached for the waterskin she had set on the trunk. Taking the crock out with her teeth she poured some water over her shoulder and arm, watching the red wash away like diluted wine. Then she wetted a clean cloth and dabbed at the open gash.

The pressure stung as she cleaned it of dirt and grains of earth and other things that should never be imbedded in her flesh as they were now. Bits of grass and earth came away with the cloth as she had expected, and continued the dabbing motion until it was clean. When there was no more Mother Nature in her, she carefully pulled her shirt aside. The wound was swollen and red all around, and the flesh torn like an old cloth. It was a sickening sight.

She sighed.

"Well? Are you going to just stand there like a thief in the shadows or come here?" Gilli demanded without looking up. "It's early, hardly time to breakfast, and none of you slept last night. You should join the others for some rest," she commented, still preoccupied with unrolling a strip of bandages. She could do with stitches, but she supposed it wasn't absolutely necessary. She could do with just cleaning and wrapping to keep infection away.

"You need to cauterize that," Kíli informed her as he moved closer and sat behind her, smacking her fingers away to inspect the hole in her shoulder. "Stop poking it; you will make it worse."

"I know how to tend to a wound, thank you kindly," Gilli retorted.

"Obviously not, if water is the most tending you did," he told her. "You need either fire or alcohol to clean this, considering how long it's been." Gilli huffed.

"And I suppose you have one of those on your person?"

"I do, actually. This will hurt," he warned. She heard a bottle open and then bit done hard on her injured lip to not cry out. It certainly wasn't fire he poured on her, but it sure felt like it bloody well was.

"Oh—bloody… hell!"

"Hold still," he instructed grabbing her shoulder above where it was hurt and holding her still even as she tried to turn to glare at the archer.

"Why did you follow me? I don't need your help, Master Kíli. I can take care of myself," she hissed.

"Have you ever tended to a wound like this?" he challenged, knowing full well she had not.

"I've taken care of worse," she decided after a moment. "Bruised ribs, broken fingers—Bae gets into fights with bigger people all the time and I'm the one cleaning him up afterward. Not to mention the years I've spent on the streets. I wasn't always out there. When I first ended up out in the world I stayed with some good people. They cared for me for a time and in doing so, spoiled me. When I left I was utterly clueless and entirely unprepared for what people would do to me. Took the brunt of things more than a few times," she said. "It was no easy task when I had an extra mouth to feed."

Thankfully, the Dwarf accepted this as he dabbed the gash with the now bloodied cloth, dripping wine on it occasionally and drawing sharp hisses from the woman.

"You will need to have this sewn," he informed her, almost offhandedly and as she nodded she wondered how many injuries has he tended to exactly.

"I know I should, but it's fine. I'll get by. I'm fine. You should worry more about yourself and your brother. I saw the falls both of you took. It's a miracle your legs are still attached to your body."

"Haven't you heard, Gilli Waters? Us Dwarves are made out of the granite we carve. Takes more than three halfwit Trolls to take us down." He smirked proudly. "Tough as a rock, we are."

"So you've been in a fight before?"

"Plenty of times!" the archer told her eagerly. "One time, when Fíli and I were traveling for work out of the Blue Mountains we came across four Orcs. Fíli said, 'I bet I can kill more than you,' and I said, 'You're on,' and we competed to see which is better: swords or a bow and arrows. I won, obviously, but he will never admit it."

"Really? When was this?" she asked as she twisted on the spot so that she might look at him as they talked.

"Five years ago? Six? Work runs short in the Blue Mountains so some of us have to take turns venturing out to make money. I never liked it much, though. It takes too long and I would much rather take on a pack of Orc's than travel the north in the winter."

"Really? I thought you would be one for adventure and exploring foreign lands," she commented.

"I am if the foreign folk in the foreign lands don't try to rob me blind and slit my throat in the night."

Gilli snorted in a very undignified manner, "Oh, I can tell you so many stories about that right now, it's really very pathetic. Made me very good at hiding things, they did."

"Don't bother hiding things. No matter how hard you try, they will always find something. What you do is, if you're in a rented room in an inn, push the bed up against the door and sleep there. Then you have to push a chair underneath the window and put something breakable on the edge of the chair. It's the perfect theft alarm," he explained.

"Mm, I can see how," Gilli commented.

She took a strip of bandages and started carefully wrapping her shoulder and arm, pushing his hand away when his grimaced and tried to fix it, with a curt, "Don't touch; I got it."

"What about you? Was this your first real fight?"

Gilli nodded. "With something that much bigger than me? Yes. I've been jumped in the streets before, by thieves and… other nasty people not worth sparing or mentioning. And I've encountered Orcs twice before, but I've already told you that one. At any rate, most of my fights last all of two minutes before I knock my opponents out. They're all just street rats used to slitting throats in the night like the filthy cowards they are. They aren't used to going up against someone trained; unprofessional though I may be."

"I can attest to that. You fight well," he complimented as she bent her head to use her teeth again to tie a secure knot, "but you could be even better if you learnt right. You hold your sword like it's a chopping ax. A weapon is supposed to be an extension of your arm. You look ridiculous when you swing it like a club," he commented.

"It's heavy," she deadpanned.

"It's balanced: though not very well, by the look of it, and you have not sharpened it in a long time. It's as heavy as it has to be or you lose power on the swing. You're the one that is a sack of bones. It really is a wonder you can go up against any of us without snapping like a twig."

"Shut up. Not all of us can be made of metal," she muttered. He grinned cheekily. "And anyway, I did well enough last night so if I can fight to fend for myself and others, it's good enough."

"Mother taught us that good enough is never good enough. Good enough means you can do better."

"She is a wise woman, then," Gilli said.

"Aye, that she is. She has a clever way with words. Most of the time. Other times she lets weapons and furniture do the talking." Kíli muttered the last part somewhat solemnly, like a bad memory, and Gilli couldn't help laugh.

"She'd have to, I imagine. What with raising you two boys. I have a son. A son—singular. I imagine I'd hang myself if Bae came to have a brother one day. My own mother deserves to be a decorated war hero; she's got eight of them."

If Kíli were drinking anything in that moment, his drink and saliva would be on her face.

"Did you say eight?" the archer all but cried. "Your mother had eight children? You're lying," he accused.

"No, I'm not. It is you who misunderstands. My mother had eight sons. Another four daughters, last I saw my family. Granted, she had two sets of twins and her second, third, and fourth daughters are triplets, but that's beside the point. It's a wonder she'd not gone mad and jumped from the highest cliff by child number four."

Kíli just gaped at her stupidly for a time, trying to process this information. Finally, he settled with the response, "Your mother is… a very fertile woman."

"Yes, she is," Gilli conformed. "Most parents usually settle with six or seven children." This didn't make it any easier for him. She laughed loudly at his expression, but quieted herself when she remembered that Dwarven children were few and far between. That Kíli's mother had two sons with less than a ten-year difference was rare and celebrated. "Sorry. Anyway, that is that. I didn't like my first real fight much, truth be told. It is all too fast and too mad. And too bloody."

"Don't tell me you are afraid of blood," he scoffed.

"No, but I don't like where there is so much of it, or when fingers and toes get separated from hands and feet. Don't get me wrong, I've seen enough injuries to last me a lifetime no thanks to Bae, but that was… a little overwhelming."

"You will get used to it," he waved off casually.

"I don't want to get used to it," Gilli told him. "I want to not ever have to fight like that again. Or at all. When I got out of that sack there was a fragment of a finger, Master Kíli. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing that. And I was lying on the bone of somebody's arm. I could have gone my whole life without that as well," Gilli said. "You know… I heard people say, after a good battle what you need is a good woman to ease the mind and blood," she joked with a smirk. To her great surprise, Kíli's eyebrows came up.

"I had not realized that was where your tastes ran, Gilli Waters. Though, to each their own I supposed," he casually shrugged.

"Excuse me?" she demanded, unsure how she was supposed to respond to that. What?

"Oh, 'tis nothing, I assure you," he hurried to say, and bowed his head slightly to hide a wide, cheeky grin stretched form one ear to the other. She knew that grin. Bae had a grin like that when he did something he wasn't supposed to and thought he was getting away with it.

"What is it?" the guide demanded with narrowed eyes.

"Really, it was nothing but a mere jest…" if it was possible, his grin became even bigger, "Miss Gilli."


	10. Eyes See True

Hello, lovelies :)) So, chapter ten here, and I'm exited. It means I'm getting closer and closer to the place I want to be in the story. This story actually started (well, the idea for it) at what will be about chapter twelve. I've been waiting to write that chapter for a while, as well as two others but those won't come for a while. Anyway, yay! So, without further ado, enjoy:

* * *

 _ **DARK WATERS**_

 _10 / Eyes See True_

* * *

There was nothing delicate about the way Gilli laughed. Certainly not what one might expect of a young maiden and certainly not as described in sappy fairytale songs about fair dames and noble Knights; some pointless romance tragedy where the hero had to sacrifice getting the girl or whatnot. No, when Gilli laughed it was bellowing; coming from the pit of the guide's stomach into the guide's diaphragm and he filled his entire mouth with sound, like a cliff-side cave in a thunderstorm.

When Gilli laughed it was all chortling like a pig, and snorting and then, in odd intervals, complete silence as the guide ran out of air and simply froze on the spot, eyes closed and teeth bared. Gilli laughed uglier than any male of any race—it was a cacophonous racket, a disordered mess of saliva and tears and strange sounds that came from the back of the guide's throat; sounds that should never be made by anyone's throat.

So when the conclusion had finally come to Kíli that this monstrosity that had a way of knocking everything down in its path belonged to Woman, the young archer all but smacked himself; he had met his share of gross folk, male and female alike, but that a donkey's voice box was implanted within their guide's throat was stepping over a disorienting line he wasn't ready to cross.

Girls, in general opinion of nearly all male counterparts, were supposed to laugh like those small bells that hang over shop doors or wind chimes in a window. No, he wasn't a naïve fool who thought all girls were like that—most lowborn dames were more like their male counterparts; they would have to be, as there was no place for gentleness when one was starving in the streets. Still, Gilli distorted a lot of predetermined facts on the general topics of what made a lady.

There were, of course, a number of exceptions, and it were those exceptions that gave 'him' away as a 'her'.

"Excuse me?" Gilli cried out with every bit of outrage a Man would have had he been accused of being a girl, which gave her points for trying and little more.

"That is what you revert to? Miss Gilli, you insult me; the least you can do now that you have been discovered is take the fall honourably," he told her, his voice and face every bit as cheeky as he felt. Gilli's face dropped into flat anger, none that would rival Thorin's to any degree, but it was impressively intimidating in its own way. In fact it looked much like his mother's: a calm and collected anger; a coal powder explosion held together by an invisible barrier. This made it all the worse because he was never sure when that barrier would collapse and obliterate everything in its way.

"Fine," the guide—the Woman—hissed sourly. "What gave it away? Did you happen to cope a feel when I was distracted?" she said, almost daring him.

"I had been suspicious for some time but you confirmed it when you explained why you carry a weapon you can't use," he explained.

"And before that?" she demanded.

"At first I just thought you were a very prudish, shy person. But then it struck me as odd that you grit your teeth all day, only to run away at night to make your water. And you refused to bathe with everyone else—"

"—I'm sorry… Did you follow my pissing schedule?" Gilli interrupted with a mix of both disbelief and disgust. "How uneventful your life must be."

"Not the most dignifying thing I've done, no, but it was odd!" he argued.

"And you absolutely must investigate all that is strange," Gilli said sarcastically.

"That you would think I'd allow something out of the ordinary go unexplored insults me. It wasn't the only thing: you also walk with your legs too close together, like you don't have anything there between them, and your mannerism is far too neat. You don't curse as often as you should, and you always wash your hands before eating and you always try to stay clean—"

"—Well excuse me for not wanting to reek of two weeks' worth of sweat. Just because I look like a man doesn't mean I have to stink like the lot of you," she interjected.

"Which is odd," Kíli finished for her "Because it's all really very obvious." Gilli leveled him with a glare and narrowed her eyes at the prince.

"What? Is it my fault everybody else is slow? Besides that, you mentioned that it's safer to travel with more weapons and two possible options were narrowed down to one. It really is quite brilliant of you. Although, I do have a few suggestions for improvement."

"But why didn't you say something to me?" Gilli pressed. "If you've known for more than a fortnight, why not corner me? Interrogate me? Hell, why not turn me in and let whatever happens happen? Why keep this with you? And, above all else, how did you manage to keep this to yourself this whole time? You really don't strike me as the kind that is very good at keeping secrets. You're like Bae that way: just grin like an idiot because you know something that everybody else doesn't."

Well, now he was offended.

"I will have you know I am very good at keeping secrets where it counts, thank you kindly. And, I wanted to," he admitted. "A number of times, I wanted to ask you; but then you started fighting and talking about your son and teaching Bilbo to ride and pulling double and it stopped mattering. I thought, as long as it is not hurting anyone, why bring it up if you went to such great lengths to keep it? Except, if only there was a betting pool on this…" he trailed off. He could have been so rich right now. "Which reminds me: what happened there?" the prince asked, brushing his thumb over the corner of his lip to indicate the red gash and diminishing swell in hers.

Gilli ran her tongue over the split and pursed her lips, "Not entirely undeserved consequences," the Woman answered curtly, wiping away the saliva with her thumb and wiping that off on her tunic.

So. "Are you and Thorin are trying to kill one another again?"

"Mm, you can say that. Is he always like that? Doing the exact opposite of what people say because it's the opposite and he can spite them? Is that the tactic I need to adopt: tell him to keep walking when I want him to stop?"

"You say it as though you're any different," the brunette archer commented naturally. If she wanted to say something about that, she chose against it a moment before the words came out, snapping her mouth shut. She cracked her knuckles one by one, causing the young prince to cringe at the horrible breaking sound.

"All right, so… now that you know something you shouldn't, what are you planning to do with this information?"

"Why do you insist on doing this? It's the third time within the past half hour you give me insult. Have you so little faith in me? It's been more than a fortnight and I've yet to tell Fíli!"

"All right, I concede," she said with a sigh of broth frustration and relief. "Though, I do find it curious that you have yet to ask me why I play for a Man."

Kíli shrugged, "I do want to know, but if I know you at all, I know you wouldn't tell me even if I did ask. On top of that, you mentioned that weapons cost money; that more often than not you have to make sacrifices just to afford the blades and bow you carry with you. To my understanding, you'd only purchase a weapon you don't know how to wield for one of two reasons: either you are a completely witless fool," she glared dangerously at this, and Kíli grinned unabashedly, "or there truly is something for you to fear. If you fear something so much that you hide who you are, then it isn't my place to ask, is it? So long, that is, as it doesn't hurt anyone," he added as an afterthought.

"You're right: I'd not have. Thank you for your consideration," the guide said solemnly, offering a sad and distant smile, her mind not where her body was. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. "So, if I was so obvious that you guessed within a fortnight, what would you suggest I do?"

~{VVV|o0o|VVV}~

They spoke as they walked back to join the others. From the fallen tree where they sat they could hear Thorin bark out an order to pack up and get moving, so they thought it best to subtly reappear and blend into the movement of the camp like they were there the entire time; that way they might not incur the King's foul mood upon them. The Dwarf in question made no comment, so they hoped against hope that he hadn't noticed—though, judging from the heat burning her back as Gilli moved, she had a feeling he noticed at least partially that they had been gone.

Even as they were ordered to search for a cave, the Troll Hoard, she and the archer spoke quietly with one another. Helpfully, he made contributions as to what she should do to sell it better ( _"Don't sit with your legs so close together. It looks very uncomfortable" "Belch when you eat" "Don't sneak off to bathe so often. You're a Man and you're in the wilds: you're supposed to smell like a pigs' pen" "Curse when appropriate. Curse when inappropriate. You made a number of crude jokes before, which was good. Make some more, occasionally" "No, don't walk like that. When I said with your legs farther apart I meant like this. Normally. You look like you dumped in your trousers" "Laugh more often. Nobody will ever guess you are not a Man if that is how your amusement sounds; you sound like a regurgitating donkey. Ow! What was that for?" "Stop talking so proper and literate. You are a lobworm Man, not a noblewoman or blushing maid; speak the part"_ ).

They found the cave shortly, though few dared go inside. The stench was foul, and not just that of the Mountain Trolls. What lay hidden within was not for those weak of mind and stomach.

Gilli walked closely at the back of the small group consisting of Gandalf, Thorin, Nori, Glóin and Bofur, second to last in the line. She would gladly have gone at the very back, but the back was reserves for those who watched everybody else's backs. The guide pulled the V of her undershirt up over her face, breathing shallowly thought the fabric as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Underneath the natural foul stench of Troll was another smell, a smell unlike any other. She had only ever smelled it a handful of times when she came upon what thieves and murderers left behind when they attacked unprepared traveling parties. It was pungent and nauseating; unsettling her empty stomach and forcing the nothingness from her in sharp gags like the ones that came once everything was in piles and the sick vomited stomach acid.

It was like walking into a wall, only it was not cold that knocked her a few steps back and sent goose bumps scattering across her flesh like freckles. If asked, she couldn't quite liken it to anything, except maybe meat, left out in the sun for a month in the summer because there really wasn't anything quite like the smell of a decomposed body. She tried hard not to look down when she stepped on something; she told herself it was an uneven tree root and kept walking. Not looking down, however, was a mistake as she followed the group of five through the cave into an area stylized as living quarters by the looks of it; as there were more things in this area then there were in any other part of the cave.

A pile of shit surrounded by flies was in the corner, alone with ragged remains of what used to be clothing, small in size. A child's clothing.

A sound began raising in her throat, one she couldn't name, but her mouth was open and her eyes were wide and her heart was in her stomach—quickly rising with the bile. She tore her eyes away forcefully, making herself look away, and her eyes landed on a large bed-like structure and on one of the posts was… something black and round and glistening wetly, with tendrils falling like a thin curtain of threads from the top. It was not large, about the size of small watermelon. Next to it was a hand.

Somebody screamed, a woman by the sound of it. Gilli's face was wet. Someone knocked into her side. No, she had knocked into them when she spun around to look away, crashing into a very short but immovable stone wall. She stumbled around the Dwarf until she fell into a wall, bracing herself on the rocky surface. Everything was dark. The light had gone out—no, wait, it didn't go out; she just closed her eyes. Somebody was making strange wailing noises and it took her a moment to realize she was the one making them, gasping, choking, trying to breathe but there was no more air in the cave. Only decomposing bodies of children and their parents, only death.

"I can't be in here," she choked out between trying to swallow oxygen and stumbled towards the exit, grabbing the wall for support until she grabbed something that wasn't a wall: it was a makeshift torch made from the bone of somebody's leg. She screamed again and fell away from it, crawling backwards until the stone scratching the skin on her hands turned to grass but even then, even in sunlight, everything was dark.

Her face was wet. Her eyes stung with salt. Someone grabbed her under her arms and hoisted her up effortlessly, inquiring if she was all right. She shoved them off her as hard as she could and stumbled away until she fell again, against a tree and tried to breathe.

"They were all right!" She wept. "They held m—held my legs and… and pleaded me to tell them stories. They la—they laughed and ran after me into… into… into the field when I left! They ran half way—and laughed and—waved! I—they—I… promised them that I would come back with more—with more tales to tell if they were good boys and listened to their mother… they were all right! They were waving at me and they were all right! Oh… gods, they were all right!"

Her nose was stuffed and she really couldn't breathe now; sobbing and wailing obnoxiously and making snorting noises every time she closed her mouth to breathe through her nose. She knew the family was dead. It was inevitable, but seeing it made it real.

They buried the remains. Despite this being a complete waste of precious time, no one argued once they heard from those who went inside what they found. Gilli, forgetting to wipe her face from tears, took up a shovel too, and when four shallow graves were dug she went back inside the cave and tried to distinguish which bones belonged to whose remains. Each grave got a skull and the other body parts were distributed according to size, though most were inaccurate. Some looked older than the others. They must've not died together.

There was hardly enough to lay out half a skeleton, but it was enough and when they covered the bodies—when they covered what was left of the bodies of the farmer and his family—Gilli dropped to her knees facing perpendicularly to the row of shallow graves and closed her eyes. The guide laced her fingers together, with her two index fingers pointing upward, hovering just about her lips, and began to whisper in a tongue long forgotten by most of her people.

 _Ta yém na'quaa wé tšan eyém temtê h'ottam. Tawé liàtûisé taw'uet awata léma péawe nam attooté témé püé n'ôhot mahÿm…_

No one interrupted her as she continued to pray, eyes closed and voice shaking as she called to the God of her people, summoning him to collect what he was denied and ward him off from the Company and herself all in a single song to the God of Death.

 _Awamaa Aléo. Natûmtám ewedé Awamaa Aléo_

"What tongue is that?" someone asked, but their voice hardly registered in her mind; only the words.

"An ancient tongue all but forgotten by all of Middle-Earth," Gilli replied mechanically, only half aware that she was speaking Westron once more. It was the mother tongue of Blackwater.

"Where did you learn it?" the same Dwarf asked, but his words were as distant as the wind, a faraway whisper that was half-drowned by the sounds of the world; the leaves in the trees overhead, the woodpecker drilling bark, a squirrel scaling a tree.

"My mother taught it to me, and then my brother when my mother was gone from me." It wasn't a lie. Gilli took a deep breath and stood up as she opened her eyes. "Take what you will if you've not already. I pray we are forgiven for desecrating the resting place of these people; the gods should see we need these things more. Ten minutes, then we move," she ordered. "We have a lot of ground to cover."

She went inside the cave swiftly, kneeling down next to a slowly diminishing pile of Golds and Silvers and took three small pouched from her bag, each with a word in writes in embroidery. Food—Shelter—Emergency. She filled each with no large number of coins, just enough to last her to the end of the journey to Dale and packed them away, then found Thorin and Gandalf discussing weaponry in the back of the cave. They stood next to a rack of swords, Gandalf holding a long and narrow blade in its sheath and the Dwarf King a sword of wave-like designs, thin at the hilt, than broadening in the middle and becoming a fine tip at the end. Gilli looked at her own sword, then at the web and dust coated blades on the rack. There was a number but each of them too great for her to carry by the look of it.

The blades were Elvish, if Gandalf was to be believed. Thorin was examining his when the old Wizard said this and the King went to put the sword away with no small amount of irritation written across his face. Gilli would have rolled her eyes. Something did, however, catch her eye. It lay on the floor behind the rack and she felt it there more than seen it. It was layered with too much dust and it was all too dark to truly make anything out, but the call of the blade was unmistakable.

Certainly, she had heard stories of the Nymph kind living willingly among Men and Elves and Dwarves on land, but all along she had assumed these to be just tales. No Nymph would ever want to live away from the waters, this much she could guarantee personally. There wasn't a feeling worse than being cut away from the waters, bound to a mortal form. Yet there it lay, on the ground in the dust and dirt, covered by the hand of time so thick that at this point it was less sword and more… everything else. Nymph kind rarely used weaponry, let alone bringing it to the land-folk, but she supposed it was here for the very same reason an ancient rack of Elvish blades was: bad timing.

Gilli moved behind Gandalf to push the rack aside, having to resort to lifting it off the ground a little in order to force it elsewhere, ignoring the inquiries as to what she was going. She could feel the Fireglass and magic in her blood like a Siren's Cry. It was the same kind of pull that constantly tugged at her mind, pulling her southeast to where her people lived, to a place she could never again set eyes upon unless she returned the Queen of Heavens. It called her to what was not hers to touch, not hers to keep.

She wrapped her fingers around the cold crystalline hilt and picked up the blade and at once the glass warmed in her hand. It was designed for the smaller size of the Nymphs, and light enough to carry easily, all the while heavy enough to have a good swing. She brushed the dust and spider webs from it, revealing the dark blade beneath the grey particles.

"A Nymphean blade," the old Wizard commented as he traced his fingers over the flat of her newly acquired weapon. "Forged by a Dwarven hand, designed by the Elves and sealed with Blood Magic of the Nymph folk. What is it doing here?"

"I don't know," Gilli admitted, admiring the find edge, sharp as the day it was forged, in her hand. Such was Nymphean magic. "The Nymph kind has not willingly set foot on land since the Dark Years, not since The Last Great Alliance. They left once the One Ring was cut from Sauron's hand. It must've looked like a fancy trinket when it was stolen," the guide said, handing it to Thorin to take a look. The King's eyes widened as he recognized the alloy from which the blade was forged. He ran the pad of his thumb over the now-dull edge, scoffing because it would not cut a twig, much less a body part. Oh, how it must've looked to him, a steel alloy sword as dull in his hand as though it has never once been sharpened. She took it back from him at his look of disapproval over the poor maintenance of a once-beautiful and deadly weapon.

"Nymphean magic works in such ways that the blade will be useless in any hand but that for which it was destined. A hand worthy to wield such a powerful weapon alone can sharpen its edge." It was a lie. The blade was only sharp in the hand of a Nymph. "An Obsidian-steel alloy—I always thought it was just an embellishment… nobody could meld glass and metal together," she mused to herself, for even with all the stories she had never actually seen one up close, let alone held it. "It can only be sharp for he who is worthy of it. Only three of these remain from the War, and all are in Blackwater," she explained. "This one must've been stolen before it could make it home."

The dark hilt was warm to the touch, the magic binding the sword alive under her fingers as it recognized a rightful wielder.

"I guess then, Dwarves found a way to combine Fireglass and steel, if only for a short time; only fifteen were ever made," she said quietly, more to herself than anybody else. "I've not heard it done since the end of the Second Age."

Fifteen, for an entire army of her people, but each sword had cut down more enemies than any other. The magic used to bind the swords was forbidden since it was been discovered in the First Age, too powerful and overwhelming was its allure. The Queen who performed the spell paid for it with her life.

Sword still in hand, Gilli turned to walk back outside. Thorin stopped her.

"You should not take that," he warned—no, not warned; advised—her, "nor do you need a blunt sword at your hip. It will be a hindrance to you and everyone else should the need arise to fight. Its historic value means nothing if it is of no use."

"No, but it belongs with its people," Gilli said. "I will see it returned to Blackwater to rejoin its brothers and sister."

"You would seek Blackwater? The Nymphean Realm has been sealed for an Age," he reminded her.

"Indeed it has been. But I think, for this blade they would open their gates. It was thought to be lost with the other eleven. They would have it back gladly."

"For a pretty price, I imagine," he growled. Gilli's first impulse was to punch him in the face, stopping half a moment before she could strike the King. Of course he would think that, she reasoned. He knew not what he spoke of for she had not told him who she was. She was but a Man to him, and in his experience (and hers) the race of Men was petty and violent when it came to getting what they wanted. Many would seek to return this sword to its people for a pretty price… not that anyone would see a coin. The Nymph folk had no currency to speak of, a little-known fact to the rest of the world.

Understanding his logic did little to sate her anger at his words, however. Had it been any other, she would have laughed and walked away because their opinion didn't matter, because who the bloody hell were they to assume anything they didn't understand? He was not anyone else. He was Thorin Pain-In-Her-Arse Oakenshield Durin.

"Am I some lowly liar and thief that you would assume I would ransom an ancient heirloom," Gilli said harshly, her voice just short of an angery shout, "or do you say it to spite me? Don't insinuate this again, Thorin Oakenshield Durinson. Not ever," she said, standing straight and her head high, looking down on him with every drop of royal blood in her veins hardening her pride. Her face was a thunderstorm that rivaled his—not beat, but it certainly gave him something to think about that someone could match his anger ounce for ounce.

"I have yet to be proven wrong in my assumptions," he told her, his eyes on her but his head straight. She would not crane his neck to look at her. Part of her respected that, but she shut that part up fast.

Oh, that… impossible Dwarf! She didn't need to prove herself to him! Not herself, not her intentions, not anything. She owed him nothing!

Only, she did have to. She did need to live up to his high and mighty standards, because like Hell she would let him be better than her.

Outside, the wind howled like a bloodhound, nearly hard enough to knock a grown Man down, throwing everything light enough to lift into the air like a tornado. Dust and sand and earth picked up, turning the day brown and grey like a sandstorm. Gandalf placed a firm hand on her shoulder, causing Gilli to look at it sharply and then at him. The Wizard's eyes told her what, enough for her to look around, to feel the wind even within the cave, blowing hair and clothing in every direction, lifting the decades of dust into the air. She look down at her hands, expecting to see her ruby pendant but found them empty save for the scratches she acquired earlier.

When the realization hit it was like a pale of ice water, sudden and chilling. The stone was a focus point used to channel the power in royal blood. If she hadn't the need to hold it… Heart thundering in her ears with fear she clenched her hands and willed herself to calm down before she made it worse. This was getting out of line. She was getting out of line. She should never have taken that thrice-cursed pendant from Gandalf; the cursed thing was never meant to be wielded by a mortal. The mortal mind was too weak to control it, too susceptible to distractions.

She left the cave, breathing deeply the (contaminated by the stench) fresh air, carefully avoiding the four hills in the ground as she whistled to Little Brother a short four-note tune, calling the horse from wherever he was. He was likely lazily breaking his fast somewhere and she was reading him away from his patch grass. Gandalf, it turned out, had discovered another sword in the cave, if the blade could be called that. It was more of a large dagger than a shortsword, but it was a good size for the Hobbit as that was precisely who the grey pilgrim gave it to—the look Gandalf cast her as she observed told her they would speak of this incident extensively later, a prospect she wasn't too happy about.

Shortly after at they encountered the Brown Wizard, Radagast (whoever would want 'The Brown' attached to their name?), the crazy forest elderly with bird feces having dried along the side of his face (maybe that was why he was called 'The Brown', Gilli thought bitterly, then smacked herself for the unwarranted, rude thought). He spoke of important matters with the Grey Wizard, and then there was a distant howl, one she had dreaded to hear for all this time.

When the first Warg appeared, she was useless as she froze in utter fear, the implication of the beast's arrival a rushing weight in her chest. She stood motionless with her mouth agape in a silent scream as it was cut down, then shocked into action as the second appeared. She approached Gandalf as the Brown Wizard offered to play bait and murmured in his ear.

"The Hidden Pass."

The Wizard nodded to her, giving her the clearance to lead them to the safe route etched into the mountains, and then it was chaos.

* * *

So. Good? So-so? Bad? Let me know!


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